Zadok Ben-David: People I Saw but Never Met

I first discovered the work of the Israeli born and London based artist Zadok Ben-David 10 years ago when I stumbled across an exhibition of his work, including the installation 'Blackfield', at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The installation consisted of thousands of steel etched flowers standing on a bed of sand. The flowers were black on one side, colourful on the other side. Memories of it stayed with me for many years and I have followed Ben-David's work ever since. I was excited when I read that there was to be a new installation at the museum this year, 'People I Saw but Never Met', and made sure to get there at the earliest opportunity.

'People I Saw but Never Met' includes thousands of figures of men, women and children. These are people that Zadok Ben-David has seen during his travels around the world over the last five years - in a market in Kazakhstan, on the streets of Tokyo, near his studio in London, on a beach in Tel Aviv, even in Antarctica - but has never met personally. Something in their presence - a facial expression, or a momentary gesture - caught his eye and made him take their photograph. He then sketched these photographs with pencil and later, by using photo-etching, he turned the sketches into a thin metal cut-out painted in black. 

Ben-David began working on the installation in 2015, adding more and more figures with each passing month. This ongoing body of work, first exhibited in 2016 in Sydney, Australia, now comprises over 6,000 metal figures, some small-scale, no taller than a foot, and others larger in size, not quite waist-tall. The larger pieces are cut from aluminium by hand. The miniatures are made from stainless steel. In the installation, each figure stands vertically attached to a small base hidden under a bed of light-coloured sand, carefully arranged en-mass on the floor of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art's expansive gallery space.

While some families and groupings are depicted, for the most part Ben-David presents isolated individuals. Many appear to be walking or captured standing still, while others are playing or riding a bike. People stroll, take selfies, crouch to tie a shoelace, check their cellphones, hurry on, search inside a purse or set a backpack on the ground for a rest. A woman in a kimono uses an open fan to shield her head from the sun. A boy rides a bicycle, a man looks at an open book.

The thin metal figures are open and you can see through them, allowing for a lot of light. They represent many different nations, cultures and religions. You can identify them only by clothes and sometimes facial features.

Though 'Blackfield' was a very colourful installation, Ben-David has kept 'People I Saw but Never Met' all in black. He wanted to avoid colours, so as not to focus on the surface of the figures. He also wanted to get a feeling of the moment with his figures. People were not aware when he was taking their photos. When he clicked the button, he made sure to turn his head away so that they were not posing.
The results are incredible. Ben-David creates movement and gives life to his "people". The thousands of figures assembled together suggest that we are both isolated yet always close together. I sat on the floor of the museum's gallery space for a long, long time, studying and enjoying each piece. It was a brilliant installation.

* This post has been shared on Sundays on Silverado, The Good. The Random. The Fun., Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday), Tuesday's Treasures and My Corner of the World.