Untitled,
2005, limited edition
About the installation, by Rinat Podisok:
 Dan Reisner's current sculpture work, Untitled, 2005, is, in fact, a
sculptural installation created from three separate sculptural units,
each one includes a few 20 cm (about 8 inch) bronze cast figures of a
man. All of the figures are self-portraits of the artist, that is, they
have the face of Dan Reisner, who made them. They were all cloned from
one metamorphosed wax mold, and each figure has a form and
characteristics of its own. The right hand part of the installation is
made of five figures holding hands and dancing the never-ending dance of
life: they move from an upright position to looseness and back
repeatedly. There is, of course, a reference to Matisse, but in
comparison with Matisse's dancers – creating a closed circle which the
viewer sees from outside, Reisner's dancers are opening the circle,
inviting the viewer to dance with them. The middle part of the
installation contains a play table; on it are scattered twenty-five
figures. Some of them are having a relationship with themselves while
others are relating to another figure, which is in fact, a similar
figure. The left hand of the installation contains one figure; on its
legs there is a Tao sign, which is Chinese for "way", and it symbolizes
aspiration, balance, deliverance which is the complete state according
to Chinese Taoism .
The two parts of the sculptural work, right and left, represent an outer
look on human existence. The right side shows existence in a syziphic
optimistic-pessimistic circle and the left side – the inspiration
towards the complete state – the Tao. In the middle there is a
representation of the continuum of the human life: bodily,
psychological, mental and spiritual aspects originating from childhood
and from human interaction. Touch, resistance, a promise for love,
femininity, masculinity, vulnerability, play, balance and imbalance,
lust and spirituality. This part of the statue represents the insights
of the physical and spiritual reality.
The characters are preoccupied with themselves, they do not notice their
surroundings, but the play table puts them together on one ground. Is it
an invitation, made by the artist, for the sculptured figures and the
audience to come and play? Which one would you have chosen as a viewer?
What are the rules of the game? What is the goal? Are there any winners?
Is there a right strategy? And maybe there is no game and a game cannot
take place, and the characters reflect an existential, frozen and
alienated state, present in reality and in the art world of the 21st
century. Is it, as in Plato's philosophy, that reality is nothing but a
reflection of an ideal shadow world, created by someone else (the
artist, God) – and humans are nothing but unconscious actors in a game
imitating the real world? Is it something they are afraid to find out?
Maybe the artist as well, like Socrates in the dialogue, understands his
role of revealing reality, but is afraid of the reaction of the blind
masses and of his fate as a seer?
 As aforesaid, on both sides of the statue - right and left, the artist
shows two extreme answers for a way of life: the syziphic life,
optimistic-pessimistic, circular with no way out as opposed to the way
of Tao, which speaks of laying down a way, a path, a line. I.e. the
possibilities exist between the circle and the line (Leonardo Da Vinci,
in his well known drawing, had put the man between the circle and the
line).
The artist shows reality (in the central part) and its ideals (on both
sides), but he does not connect the parts together into one. Why? Are
the possibilities outside of the game limits? Is there a meaning to the
gap (the space) separating the three pieces of the whole work? Do the
private man, the creating man, mankind and the art need this gap in
order to observe reality and bring a change to it?
'Untitled', "Israeli Art from the Discount Bank Collection", Tel-Aviv Museum, 2004
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