Yevgraf Konchin, Kultura Portal
No. 43 (7350) October 24-30, 2002
The last exhibition of paintings by Aaron April, one of the “Sixties Generation” artists, took place in Moscow in 1971. The following year, he emigrated to Israel. And now, three decades later, he is once again showcasing his works in Moscow, at the Museum of Modern Art on Petrovka.
Over the Hills of Judea 1999
But the difference between that “Sixties Generation” artist and the current fashionable European master is not just the thirty years that have passed. A completely different artist has emerged before us—different in his worldview, in his perception of the real world and its artistic expression, in his style, in his painting manner… I believe he will surprise and astound his friends and colleagues who knew him from those earlier times.
Ninety works are presented, mostly executed recently. The themes are exclusively biblical, chosen—as Aaron April himself explained—for the integrity of the exhibition’s perception.
First and foremost, the exhibition impresses with its vibrancy, its tempestuous riot of color, and its fantastic play. It’s as if dozens of rich oriental carpets are rapidly unfurling before the visitors. This chromatic invasion is initially simply overwhelming. But when you look closer, you suddenly realize that within this flamboyant color chaos, there is objectivity and even a programmatic quality to the works. Dmitry Zhilinsky quite accurately noted this characteristic of Aaron April’s painting. “For me as an artist, accustomed in my works to the clarity and distinctness of drawing and color spots,” he writes, “it is sometimes difficult to immediately focus, delve into, and understand the stylistic and pictorial structure of his paintings. But when you look closely, you are grateful to the artist for the true joy of what has been created.” “Two levels of his paintings ‘operate’ separately,” observes Ilya Kabakov, “the level of the dramatic plot and the curtain of paint that covers it—and between them a complex and mysterious connection and rupture.”
The internal tension and drama in April’s works are whimsically combined with striking external vibrancy. The imagery of his paintings is highly multi-layered, complex, much broader and more significant than indicated in the work’s title. For example, “The Abduction of Europa” is a classic subject. But April found his own understanding, his own figurative and colorful interpretation. Therefore, in this canvas, you see both “The Abduction of Europa,” as we imagine it from classical art examples, and much more that is profoundly individual and distinctive. It draws you in with its semantic content and, of course, its colorful, plastic form, which above all else attracts and provides aesthetic pleasure. Other canonical works are filled with unique content: “Lot with Daughters,” “Job,” “In Herod’s Summer Palace,” “Hagar,” “On the Outskirts of Jerusalem,” “The Sacrifice”…
Aaron April’s paintings, I repeat, are dramatic. Particularly noteworthy is a cycle that I would call “avian,” for here the artist introduces defiant, embittered roosters and other birds of prey as the main semantic tuning fork. These include “Enmity,” “Last Flight,” “Birds Like People,” “Above the City,” “In Heaven and on Earth,” “Under the Clouds.” And finally, some works are encoded and aphoristic. For instance, the canvas “Without Victors” was probably inspired by the terrible prospect of a global atomic war. In the works “Anxious Time,” “Unconscious Reality” (to some extent, a symbol of the artist’s entire oeuvre), “Resistance,” reality almost disappears, dissolving into chromatic sensations and reappearing as a mysterious shadow
