Performance: Getting Involved
Dan Allon
Curatorial Guidance: Dr. Revital Michali
24-26.08.23
Getting Involved
Getting involved is a performance work comprised of live drawing in the gallery space and open civics lessons to be held as an uninterrupted three-day sequence at Alfred Gallery. Getting Involved is a performative act in which artist Dan Allon reacts to current events in the State of Israel. In response to the amendment of Basic Law: The Judiciary, or cancelling use of the “reasonableness doctrine” in judicial review of government decisions, which passed in the Knesset in July 2023, with a 64-0 majority, Allon enters the gallery to work on two levels and wearing two hats:
The protesting artist hat: Allon will draw 64 portraits (using felt pen on paper) of the Members of Knesset who voted in favor of the first part of the regime change. This is an act that is artistic and political, as well as an act of resistance. Allon seeks to expose the Members of Knesset that are changing Israel’s regime, to present their portraits and extract them from the anonymity enabled by the headlines. The 64 drawings, and all the materials that accumulate over the three days, will be displayed in the gallery.
The teacher hat: Allon, who also works in his everyday life as a teacher, will hold three civics lessons for audience participation on each day of activity. Each lesson will address a different relevant concept related to the current political/legislative situation in the State of Israel.
Allon, who supports the protests but does not participate in them due to trauma and difficulty being in large crowds, “gets involved” in the gallery space. He will document the performance’s numerous acts and upload them to social media.
About the artist
Dan Allon is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Israel. He is a graduate of the Postgraduate Studies Program at the Hamidrasha Faculty of the Arts and a lecturer at Shenkar and Bezalel academies. Allon often reacts in his works to political events in Israel. In 2015, during Operation Protective Edge, which forced Allon to remain far away from his studio in Tel Aviv and work from home, Allon began drawing digital political images that he shared on social media. The images were daily political drawings based on television broadcasts. In 2020, ahead of his return to Israel after a prolonged stay in Berlin, he created a video work based on digital drawings, which addresses the relationship between his personal life and the political situation of five rounds of elections. In spring 2023, he exhibited a performance in the cooperative gallery Nulobaz in Tel Aviv, where he resided for several days, during which he created digital drawings about the demonstrations against the regime change.
His works have been exhibited in Israel and abroad, inter alia at the Haifa Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Slovenia, KW in Berlin, Casa do Povo in São Paulo, and Nahmad Projects in cooperation with curator Francesco Bonami. He has also participated in numerous art residencies in Norway, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Brazil and more. He works with the Italian gallery B#Side War. His works as an author and comics artist have been published in France, the US, and Germany, and he is a member of the Humdrum Comics Collective. In addition to his work as an artist, Allon is a high school teacher.
About the curator
Dr. Revital Michali, researcher, independent art curator, teacher and performance artist, lives and works in Tel Aviv. Michali holds a doctorate in Visual Art from Tel Aviv University. Her writing and art focus on female identity, motherhood and her connection to the public space. Michali has curated and produced exhibitions and art events in Tel Aviv, Berlin and the United States, including solo and group exhibitions at the ID Festival and Bethanien Künstlerhaus in Berlin, Providence College Galleries in Providence and Alfred Gallery. She has also curated performance night events and festivals at the galleries Kav 16, Alfred in Tel Aviv and Circle 1 in Berlin. She has written and produced artist books and collectors’ catalogs.