Mars Caful, 16 faces of 30 x 30 cm (2011-2012)
The story that Tsuki Garbian tells is not a parable. It is not a comparison, allowing us to understand the painting and the situation. It is a true story that concerns an Israeli painter, then a teenager, who presents his work to an emeritus professor. Seeing the student's work, he advises him to stop painting. He probably explained the reasons to him. " Rather than art," he says, " study law, become a lawyer. " The young painter's name is Raffi (Rafael) Lavie. He would later become one of the most important artists of his time, one of the founders of the 10+ movement. The story that Tsuki Garbian tells is his own and it serves as the basis, in a way, for the painting he presents here, whose title is "Mars Caful." These two words designate a major defeat in backgammon.
Tsuki Garbian likes to question history. In painting, it says so many things, relating to feeling, to society, and then to those who have nourished you. Tsuki thus cites many artists of the Renaissance. He mentions " the paintings of Vermeer and Caravaggio, which are the important moments of history. Their paintings also work in this way. Through successive layers, on planes that overlap each other, they speak of what has been, before and what is happening now ." Later, Garbian will say, in contemporary painting, many artists have painted and thought in this way. " Rauschenberg took a painting by de Kooning, he covered it and called it "Erased de Kooning ." Erased means erased. Thus he explains that we all seek to "forget" the one who precedes us, to annihilate the tutelary figure. But not only that.
Rauschenberg took a painting by de Kooning, covered it up, and called it 'Erased de Kooning'. Faces buried, forgotten, names extinguished, history denied—the negation of the other, the refusal of life.
In the case of Raffi Lavie, the case is a little different. Here, the master wants to erase the student. And this attempt does nothing but reinforce the immense anger. Raffi will be considered a painter full of violence, " nervous, aggressive and abrasive. " But he is also a living painter, a survivor of the murder, brought out of oblivion—a witness. The recovery of memory is a necessity. We are born from this. Our parents who are painters or victims, survived this crime. When he forbids young Raffi to practice his art, the teacher also reinforces the vigor and determination, which make this flame impossible to extinguish. In this sense, Raffi is a pioneer, a necessary builder.
Tsuki Garbian has painted in this way that 92 times the stated will to keep the face visible. These features are his, but it could also be Vermeer or de Kooning, who are erased and resurrected. Raffi's face rises from the depths of this kingdom, Tsuki's face and that of the professor also in his will to annihilate. The stone was rolled in front of the tomb. By opening the access, Garbian discovers in the thickness of the painting and the earth this litany that no forgetting extinguishes.
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