By FELICE NAOMI WONNENBERGAn article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
If it is fitting for Jerusalem to have its Lion of Judah as a symbol of pride in ancient traditions, Tel Avivians will celebrate the 2009 centennial of their beloved city with quite a different heraldic animal: the Mediterranean metropolis will have a comics duck as its mascot.
Unfortunately, Tel Aviv sports not only 4,000 historic Bauhaus buildings, but also an overwhelming number of buildings from the 70s that were built according to economic concerns and not designed according to aesthetic choices.
One such unfortunate child of miseries is the Tel Aviv city hall, smack in the center of town. For years this building with its façade, which was once meant to be colorful and has long since withered into faded shades of spinach green and long-gone purple, has annoyed me as a poor backdrop for romantic blind-date encounters in the city center. How can you wear a fashionable French white cotton dress and high heels and present yourself standing in front of this aesthetic accident of the urban past? But now there is relief for this architectonic embarrassment.
In June, a giant yellow duck was inflated on the rooftop of city hall as hundreds of jubilant fans cheered in Rabin Square below. The event was the realization of a vision dreamed up some five years ago by the late artist, illustrator and writer Dudu Geva.
The talented Geva, who died unexpectedly, aged 54, in February 2005, was famous for his duck drawings and other illustrations that appeared in newspapers and books in a career that spanned almost four decades. The duck, a bright yellow comics figure with a puff of black feathers sticking up into the air, orange beak and long floppy legs, became Geva's trademark.
One of his ideas, the "duck-ization of Tel Aviv" called for the city to be decorated with huge sculptures of ducks and other animals, amusing street signs, and the embellishment of trees with colorful pieces of paper. Quite tongue in cheek, he explained his program: "My initiative stems from the fact that the city is lost," Geva wrote in the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha'Ir in 2003. "Tel Aviv is so ugly that you need to erase entire streets and start from scratch. At least let us decorate and celebrate in the streets. The city hall is a lost building. If a giant duck were placed on its roof, everything would change. The idea is to bring joy back to the people's hearts and to incorporate art in everyday life."
Geva's two children, Tamar, 25, and Aharon, 22, and the artist Yuval Caspi set out to realize his dream. In a ceremony, laced with irony, Geva's offspring and Caspi enthroned the duck on the edge of the roof of the building in Rabin Square. With the help of a huge air pump, they breathed soul into the 10-meter-high creature. Caspi recalls the "historic moment": "The duck stretched its legs, raised its head and beak and, finally, stretched its chest and let its yellow legs dangle. From its throne, the duck nonchalantly looked over the city." In an allusion to the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel, Caspi announced: "We have gathered today, members of the coop committee, the duck movement, and based on our historical right, we hereby declare the creation of the Duck State in Tel Aviv."
"The main purpose of the event was to create cheap accessible art for the people," explains Geva's son Aharon."My father had always expressed his hope that more space in Tel Aviv would be devoted to humor and art. This is an optimistic, happy and artful initiative for the people - that's what my dad intended when he created the duck and all his other creations."
Two decades ago Dudu Geva invited another famous duck into one of his comic books, inserting a drawing of Donald Duck into his stories. Disney was not amused, sued Geva and won their case and Geva was forced to pay the legal costs and remove the offending books from the shelves The duck on the city hall is not a copy of the American idol - the Rabin Square mascot is the 100% brain child of the Israeli artist.
Passerby Eran Saar stops in Rabin Square to gaze up at the offbeat ornament. "It is very cool and funny, refreshing, and a nice touch to ease the city's ugliness," says the 32-year-old composer. "It's very surprising to discover that someone making decisions has some taste as well."
Another young man comes all the way from Haifa to document and photograph the urban installation. "It feels like the duck is telling Tel Avivians not to take themselves so seriously," he says. "They think of themselves as so important, but from up there it's all quite ugly."
What began as a gesture to a beloved artist has culminated in a new symbol for Israel's liveliest city. The original plan called for the duck to remain on the building for one month. But when the time came to deflate the rubber bird, protests erupted and ultimately the will of the people prevailed: The duck was not only granted a reprieve, but promoted to an even loftier status.
At a meeting in July 2008, the council voted to make Geva's duck the city's official mascot for the centennial celebrations starting in April 2009 in Rabin Square and there will even be a "Duck Festival" in the Yarkon Park in July 2009.
An article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Reportclick here.
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