Designist Dream

A recent family jaunt to Tel Aviv led us to the city’s current public art project, Global View. More than 100 globes dotted the beautiful Rothschild Boulevard as part of a joint business-art venture that partnered the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), NY Stock Exchange, NASDAQ and London Stock Exchange (LSE) with 100 leading Israeli businesses. Each company was responsible for working with an Israeli artist to design a globe that represented the concept and vision of the company regarding globalization and its impact on today’s world.

I was really excited to have stumbled upon this event. I didn’t see it publicized anywhere and I’m a big fan of public art projects. I was very eager to put on my ‘thinking cap’ and ‘looking skills’ and start strolling down the boulevard for investigation, stimulation and, most important, inspiration.

All excitement was quickly squashed when I bumped headfirst into the unbearable and ubiquitous Osem baby. I can’t stand that creepy baby. He’s too big for that diaper and he’s everywhere I look – on snacks, commercials, the supermarket. Now, he’s even on installation art? (And it wasn’t as an artist anti statement type thing.) Turning around I noticed my bank sponsored another globe. Their interpretation of their role in the global world? The globe chained down to a key with the bank’s logo. A horrifying thought: my bank controls my world or at least weighs it down heavily. And with chains.

This exhibition was so wrong it wasn’t right. Everywhere we looked, globes were splashed out with company logos, colors or literal representations of what they do. The level of ‘interpretation’ was so limited and the craftsmanship was often simplistic or amateurish. If I had to bet, I’d say the companies kept the artists on a tight leash. And I wonder what the artists would say about that…

The only globe I found interesting was this one above by Israel Petrochemical Enterprises and Israeli artist Adital Ella. The globe had several openings that spiraled down into the Earth’s core. Peeking your head into them to see deep down, you noticed that each which was filled with tiers of plastic figurines of people, animals, food and other products. The jutting out bicycle at the base represented clean energy. The artist herself is a lecturer at the social-environmental design study program at Holon Academic Institute of Technology and an advocate for sustainable design. It is clear that her interest in the relationship between man, industry and nature played a big part in her globe-artwork.

Everyone seems to be going green or getting global these days but this exhibition proves that where some just want to conquer and exploit, others want to engage and inspire. This single globe made the entire exhibition worth seeing for me. It was smart, engaging and still interesting to think about. It’s still on view through November 5th.

Let me know what you think.