Arie Berkowitz

The book summarizes fifty years of artwork. Contains articles by Dr. Yigal Bin-Nun, Raz Samira, Ori Drumer, and Efi Gen. The book is divided into chapters according to different stages of consciousness.

[I] Early works from the 1970s to the 1990s, in which he engaged mainly in primitivist imagery a-la Arte Povera,13 and/or a quick, rough line, and/or two-dimensional sculpture based on inexpensive, functional materials. It is a body of primal, nomadic, survivalist, bestial, wild, and sexual works, as is also evident in the photograph The Hunter.

[II] Works from 2000 onwards, featuring place-making structures whose common denominator is the juxtaposition of marginal objects to create three- and two-dimensional installations of negligible items, which do not surrender a (rational-analytical) connecting thread; at the same time, their installation side by side (on one wall) generates a permanent meaning on-site, which allows contemplation on what was chosen to make up the work and the meaning of the individual elements and the whole: the sense of movement between a chance choice (even if it is related to the artist's early memories) and the fixation of the contingent and the instinctive in a work of art, a movement that characterizes many of Marcel Duchamp's (1887–1968) works, as well as collages, assemblages, and photomontages created by Dada artists in the first half of the 20th century.

Via his artistic practice, Berkowitz gives life to the marginal that was abandoned, through visibility, which includes renewal, reinterpretation, and reintegration, as if this act can revive something of the lost past, abandoned and lost for good.