Noga Gallery is delighted to present sculptures and paintings by Chanan de Lange created in 2013-2015.

The exhibition’s title alludes to an in-between state, the elusive moment between darkness and light, when the sky is still blue but the landscape is getting darker, like the in-between that exists in de Lange’s artworks throughout his artistic career. Since his graduation and throughout his work as a designer, planner, architect, de Lange engages in a profound dialogue with visual art.

Marcel Duchamp created a distinction between the “ready-made” and “objet trouvé” (found object), which the artist discovers and chooses due to its singular qualities. The ready-made is usually one object of many, produced in mass assembly line, a nondescript object. Andre Breton defined the ready-made as “an industrial object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist”.

Chanan de Lange’s studio houses hundreds or thousands of ready-made parts alongside items collected over the years with love and care, objects with past and history, with cultural values of their own and very specific associations to the life of de Lange, which serve as a reservoir of memories, or as the painter’s palette.

Chanan de Lange is a Dadaist artist, the spirit and freedom of Dada artist is blowing between his works, characterized by a playful and tongue in cheek tone. Marcel Duchamp had said: “I enjoy looking at the bicycle wheel, it has a pleasing and comforting aspect”. De Lange’s pleasure in the creation process, the freedom with which he operates, breathes life, forms relationships, re-creates, creates two and three dimensional works, full of humor, movement, and imagination. The connection between the different elements forms a new syntax that imbues them with fresh, personal and universal meanings.

The exhibition also includes works on canvas originating in curtains, in some of the canvases there is a use of light. The works on canvas, like the sculptures, stress the engagement with liminal moments, and correspond in a different manner with that hinted in-between.

Professor Chanan de Lange graduated with honors from Bezalel Department of Industrial Design. He has been an active designer since 1985 and a teacher at Bezalel since 1988. He served in the past as head of Bezalel Industrial Design Bachelor’s Degree program and (1992-1995) and Bezalel Industrial Design Master’s Degree program (2006-2007). An associate professor since 2003 and a professor since 2008.

De Lange has had two solo exhibitions at Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2012 and 1994), as well as a solo exhibition at Novalis Gallery in Turin, and Haifa Museum, and his works were featured in many group exhibitions at Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, The Tel Aviv University Gallery, The Artists’ Studios, Holon Design Museum and more.

Chanan de Lange | So It goes | 23.6.22-30.7.22

“And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.” –  Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

In his recent series of works, Chanan de Lange focuses on sand as a material and a signifier – of mankind, of a place, of the land. First, de Lange lays down cotton canvases painted with acrylics on his studio floor, “pouring” yellow carpenter’s glue on the canvas to create the work’s formal foundation. He then sprinkles sand on the glue, using a sieve: burnt black industrial sand, red sand gathered near Mitzpe Ramon and quarry sand. While the glue is still in its liquid state, he picks up the canvas and tilts it, allowing gravity to guide the movement of the sand in a controlled manner.

The grains of sand move and shift along the glue according to de Lange’s hand movements. The action stops once the desired shape “takes hold” on the canvas. After the glue has completely dried, loose sand is removed with a hard brush, and the sand grains fixed in the glue remain and determine the final work. Like in action paintings, the body takes part in the artmaking process. In de Lange’s practice in general, and in this exhibition in particular, there is always significance to the random, to uncertainty, both in the creative act and as part of the statement.

The works featured in this exhibition engage with forced migration as a result of wars, persecutions and pandemics, most of which are the outcome of human actions. The grains of sand that de Lange scatters are at the mercy of external forces that impact their migration. They are pushed out of their place, and settle on the glue, with no control over their fate until the work is completely dry. So it goes.

The exhibition takes its name from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Throughout the book, the depictions of cruelty and death almost always end with the phrase “so it goes,” as a critical commentary on the ease with which human injustices are tolerated, and the indifference in the face of tragedies.

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Prof. Chanan de Lange is a B.des Graduated with honors of the Department of Industrial Design at Bezalel. Active as a designer since 1985. Lecturer at Bezalel since 1988. Previously served as head of the bachelor’s department in industrial design at Bezalel and head of the master’s program in industrial design at Bezalel.

Chanan de Lange has presented a variety of solo exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (1994, 2011); Haifa Museum of Art (2000, 2005); Novalis Fine Arts Gallery, Torino, Italy (2008); Living Design Center Ozone, Tokyo, Japan (2002) and more. Participated In many group exhibitions, including at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Haifa Museum; Design Museum, Holon; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York; The University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv; Wilfried Museum and more. His works are included in the collections of the Tel Aviv Museum, the Israel Museum, the Design Museum in Holon, the Haifa Museum and other public and private collections.

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With thanks to: Yoram Aschheim, Eyal Shushan, Boaz and Alon, Noga Litman. With a special Thanks to Tal de Lange.

Translated by Maya Shimony