Located not far from the Jaffa Port, on a street that, for many years, was nameless and only carried a number, is Nachum Enbar’s studio. With massive sculptures carved in stone and workstations for students who come to study with this master, Enbar’s studio offers a peek into an artist’s atelier from a different time and place. The knocking of the hammer and chisel can be heard from the street, and not once have passersby come inside, intrigued at the artist who is working there.
Vardit: You follow a work technique known as “direct carving”. What does that imply?
Nachum: The direct carving technique I practice had begun in the early 20th century. As part of an overall pursuit of new artistic paths and means of expression, there was this attempt to work not according to a preliminary model — from a plaster model for example, or with special tools for copying — but to carve into the stone directly. You work with the stone and evolve with it, taking into account the hardness of the slab, its dimensions and tones. You immerse yourself in it.
This type of work allows you to approach the stone differently, it’s not as violent. You’re not looking to implement right away the composition you’re after, rather you let yourself get to it. The work I do by hand, using no mechanical shortcuts, allows me the time need to grow and evolve with the slab. The formal aspect at the beginning of the work is crucial to me as a sculptor. Content tends to emerge later on, and the aim is to merge the two.
You’re works are rather easy to connect with.
Everywhere in the world, there’s a big disconnect between the greater audience and the leading voices in the art world, in Israel just as in Europe and the USA. In Israel however, being so small, there aren’t that many options. In the USA and in Europe there’s a niche for every single thing, there’s plenty of galleries that are active on all sorts of levels. There’s plenty of room, even for artists who aren’t in the mainstream at a given moment. But bigger places offer greater possibilities.
Is this not hard work, physically?
It is, but a lot depends on the pace of your life in general. If you stress out over schedules and running after material rewards, it might get difficult. I’ve accustomed myself to a more natural pace. For livelihood I only rely on teaching. I was always drawn to working by hand. In a way, stone carving is similar to working the land. It’s cathartic in that the product is creative and satisfying. The physical gratification over carving the stone is like that of plowing the land, of digging trenches in a virgin soil.
The series of sculptures on view is titled “The Sculptor and His Sculpture,” suggesting an inner-artistic introspection.
It’s a series I’ve been working on for some 10 years now. There’s my own portrait in it — a sculptor at work and how he relates to the sculpture itself. In the first work he is seen touching the sculpture, he observes it, slightly from behind, with a tilt of the head. Then he becomes absorbed in it, he embraces it to the point that it shows up as an abstract idea inside his head. When you’re at it, carving the stone, it’s also an idea that you’re sculpting, and yet part of what you’re saying is what you’re doing. The sculpture is also a povrtrayal of who you are. I portray myself through the idea in the sculpture.
You have quite a name as a teacher, and yet your works haven’t been as widely exhibited as I’d expect.
I haven’t had any major shows in recent years. I had two extensive shows in Israel in the 1970s, and one more in 2013. For a while I’ve been living and working in Milan, where I exhibited more frequently. But I haven’t been nurturing that. Partly because I was focused on life and work and partly because the art world in general went in a totally different direction, less related to the work I was doing. To an extent, work in that medium got excluded from the mainstream of the art world.
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