The Good Eye
S. Hardan at the Mabat Gallery
The lyrical abstract of S. Hardan (27) is a direct result of the Israeli lyrical abstract of the 1950s and 1960s. The main point in this exhibition is twofold: Hardan’s admirable level of artistic ability and his skill in deciding to “paint” despite the pressure from his surroundings that want to be liberated from “painting.” Hardan is quite an accomplished practitioner of traditional theoretical and professional principles that have been sturdily constructed. He is operating in the same arena whose images and syntax, for example, are well-known from the work of veteran artist Yehezkel Streichman. Thus, Hardan presents a very graceful style of painting that is carefully executed and stands correctly and whose decorative elaborations are capable of eliciting a feeling of a “thin” sensitivity.
The fact that Hardan engages in what is referred to in the jargon of critics as “open problems” cannot be denied but, in this case, it appears less problematic than in many other cases. The admirable level of skill and the good eye are what enable the possibility of “simple” pleasure from an elegant repetition of familiar solutions. Hardan’s decision to paint in a setting that is antagonistic to painting is in itself, of course, of a private, rather limited, value. The actual value of this decision is granted by his painting.
