Untitled (Jefferson), Paris 2008 (124/85 cm)
"David Adika's work in the Exhibition 'Living Room' (Salon) combines portrait and still life photographs. It is distinguished by its sensitive and precise treatment of overt and covert cultural tensions between East and West, high and low, aggressive and restrained. Concurrently, his work offers an alternative or renewed organization of intimacy. Portrait transforms into object, wall becomes frame, space turns into a work of art, in a manner which eludes the viewer's perception as to the distance or proximity between the artist and his subjects. The work spans close-up photographs of friends and objects extracted from Adika's private world, taken with gaze which is shaped and constructed via accumulation and delay, through profound acquaintance, rather than yearning for closeness or exploration of its very feasibility. The result is meticulous, exact, stoic, yet not necessarily perfect photographs, which are presented with all the beauty and quirkiness of their objects, their built-in symbolism, deviations and flaws".
[ From the text Between 'East and West' by Hadas Maor (Curator), 'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010 ]
Untitled (Jefferson), Paris 2008 (124/85 cm)
Untitled (Chocolat Noir, Tour Eiffel), Paris 2008 (124/85 cm)
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
"The enigmatic images often function as reference, as principle signs, whose essential stand-taking is accumulated in their interstices. Thus, for example, in the diptych: Untitled (Jefferson), Untitled (Chocolat Noir, Tour Eiffel), the right side portrays a dark-skinned man whose sculpted body is all exposed, save a shiny earring and metal chain around his neck, which flutters over his body. The left part of the diptych features the Eiffel Tower, the iconic emblem of Paris in particular and France in general, yet this is not an image of the real, monumental iron tower, but a scaled-down model made of dark chocolate. The French term denoting dark chocolate - 'chocolat noir' - (literally "black chocolate") - introduces a linguistic echo for the visual aspect of the man's skin tone, prompting critical contemplation of the affinities between the two sections of the diptych, as well as the issue of French nationality and the ways in which to be part it. (Since the image does not provide information about the man's civil/sociological/economic status, he could be a born French citizen, an African emigre, a refugee devoid of rights, or any combination of all above). Thus, the gap between so-called stable and fluid notions is radicalized, and at the same time - elucidated."
[ From the text Between 'East and West' by Hadas Maor (Curator), 'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010 ]
Untitled (David), Tel Aviv 2009 (124/85 cm)
Untitled (Black Head), Tel Aviv 2010 (80/56 cm)
Untitled (Aline), Tel Aviv 2010 (124/85 cm)
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
Untitled (Michal), Tel Aviv 2010 (54/38 cm)
Untitled (Nature Morte), Paris 2008 (67/97 cm)
Untitled (Abdellah Taia A), Paris 2008 (60/42)
Untitled (Abdellah Taia B), Paris 2008 (60/42)
Untitled (Jonathan), Paris 2008 (124/85 cm)
Untitled (Osnat), Tel Aviv 2010 (70/49 cm)
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
Untitled (David), Dead Sea 2009 (70/42 cm)
Untitled (Omer), Tel Aviv 2010 (87/61 cm)
Untitled (Batia), Tel Aviv 2008 (38/63 cm)
Untitled (Yellow Orchid) Paris 2008 (124/85 cm)
Untitled (Neria) Tel Aviv 2009 (54/38 cm)
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
Untitled (Uri R G B), Dead Sea 2009 (38/63 cm)
Untitled (Pineapple wearing red & pink), Paris 2009 (54/38 cm)
Untitled (Pineapple wearing red & pink), Paris 2009 (54/38 cm)
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
'Living Room', installation view, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv 2010
"The work's display in the exhibition also involved painting some of the exhibition walls, an act which reinforced the decorative potential of the work, but at the same time reveled itself as an expansion of conceptual themselves. The wall hues were, in fact, skin colors, whether lighter or darker, concatenating the gamut of skin tones appearing in the works. The colors' presence on the walls, as an additional frame for the the work, underscores its displayable dimension, a dimension which makes educated use of the practice of hiding and beautification innate to the application of make-up and their link to presentability, but also concealment. In so doing, Adika's work exposes, as a self-evident, the fact that the aesthetic is political, that the cultural is aggressive, that the familiar is accepted. At the same time, it strives to expand the boundaries of this notions, and thereby to undermine them".
Untitled (Bitanya), Tel Aviv 2010 (80/56 cm)