Dani Karavan

Daniel "Dani" Karavan (; 7 December 1930 – 29 May 2021) was an Israeli sculptor best known for site specific memorials and monuments which merge into the environment.

Biography

Daniel (Dani) Karavan was born in Tel Aviv. His father Abraham, was the chief landscape architect of Tel Aviv from the 1940s to the 1960s.

He attended Tichon Hadash high school in Tel Aviv. At the age of 13, he began studying painting. From 1943 to 1944 he studied art under Aharon Avni, at the Avni Institute. From 1945 to 1948 he studied with Marcel Janco, Avigdor Stematsky and Yechezkel Streichman in Tel Aviv. the Batsheva Dance Company, and the Israel Chamber Orchestra among others. After representing Israel with his Jerusalem City of Peace sculpture at the 1976 Venice Biennale, he obtained more international commissions – including sculptures in France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Switzerland.

In February 2016 Karavan was commissioned by Sigmund Rolat, the founder of the organization Remembrance and Future Foundation, to design the controversial monument From Those You Saved in Warsaw to commemorate Polish righteous gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Prior to commissioning Karavan, Rolat had denounced the design by Austrian architect Gabu Heindl and artist Eduard Freudmann which had won the preceding controversial monument competition. Karavan initially declined the commission after he had read an article written by Freudmann and Heindl, in which they criticized the foundation and their course of action. In April 2016 Karavan announced that he accepted the commission to build the monument, thereby sparking another furor. To this day, the monument for Polish righteous gentiles has not been built.

Awards In 1977, Karavan was awarded the Israel Prize, for sculpture. In 1998, he was one of five recipients of the Japanese annual Praemium Imperiale art prize. In 2009 he was awarded the degree of Doctor honoris causa from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

List of projects A memorial created by Dani Karavan in 2005, depicting the foundation of the Regensburg Synagogue that was destroyed during a pogrom in 1519. The inscription 'מזרח' in Hebrew is 'east' in English. Monument to the Negev Brigade (1963–1968, Negev, Beersheva) Memorial to the Holocaust, 1972, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. Kikar Levana (Hebrew for The White Plaza; 1977–1988, Tel Aviv, Israel) Tower of Tears (memorial installation at Yad La-Shiryon, Latrun, Israel) Axis of the Metropolis (1980–, Cergy, France) Line 1-2-3+4+5, Fattoria di Celle- Collezione Gori, 1982 Italy Tzaphon (iron sculpture in the form of a disc for the entrance square of the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf, Germany, 1990) The Way of Human Rights (1989–1993, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany) Passage, a Homage to Walter Benjamin (1990–1994, Portbou, Catalonia, Spain) Way to the Hidden Garden (1992–1999, Sapporo Art Forest open-air gallery, Japan) Ma'ayan (1993–95, Miyazaki Prefecture Art Museum, Japan) Way of Peace (1996–2000, Negev Desert near Nitzana, Israel) Murou Art Forest (1998–2006, Nara Prefecture, Japan) Garden of Remembrance (1999, Duisburg Inner Harbour, Germany) The tea ceremony, Fattoria di Celle- Collezione Gori, 1999 Italy Bereshit (Hebrew: Genesis; 2000–, Kirishima Art Forest, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan) Regensburg Synagogue memorial, 2005 Time (2009, Calenzano, Italy) Memorial to the Sinti and Roma victims of National Socialism (2012, Berlin, Germany)