Multi-story walls

Rami Meiri’s new book tells the tale of the striking murals he is known for here and abroad.

By BARRY DAVIS
Nahalat Binyamin 370 (photo credit: courtesy)
Nahalat Binyamin 370
(photo credit: courtesy)
Rami Meiri went to the wall quite some time ago, albeit only in a positive and highly pleasing esthetic way.
There can’t be too many residents of Tel Aviv or indeed anyone who has ever been to the metropolis, who doesn’t know the 55-year-old artist’s work. The 1989 mural of the face of the “shouting man,” with distinctly uneven teeth, eyes shut tightly, hands pulling at the sides of his mouth and a baby’s bottle in his left hand, which is located strategically at the mega-busy intersection near the Azrieli Towers, has become a Tel Aviv landmark. That, and many other Meiri creations from here and all over the world, can be viewed at the public’s leisure in Meiri’s new book, Talking Walls, which was launched this week.
It is fair to say that Meiri has singlehandedly changed the urban landscape in this country. His realistic, surrealistic and comic al fresco paintings have given the Israeli public a new perspective on street aesthetics.
Take, for example, Meiri’s portrayal of a rear view of a bunch of people hanging out at a street café, on a wall of… a street café, on Ben-Zion Boulevard in Tel Aviv.
When you drive, cycle or walk past the mural, you generally do a brief double-take before continuing on to your planned destination, but it’s a fair bet that you do so with something approaching a smile on your urbanfocused face.
Meiri is a curious mixture of streetwise intelligence and charming insouciance. We met at his delightful Tel Aviv studio near the seafront, where he conjures up ideas for new creations and passes on some of his accrued artistic skills and nous, to all manner of people from all walks of life. Around the attractively timeworn building, with its highly colorful and somewhat ramshackle interior, stretches an expansive yard with hens cluck-clucking and running around merrily while we chat in the shade of an enormous sycamore tree.
There is a row of painting easels nearby and an outdoor rug is surrounded by a motley variety of seating contraptions. It is a rare, almost pastoral oasis in the heart of the urban jungle.
Mind you, Meiri’s hideaway is not exactly immune from the march of progress. On one side, a 20-story hotel block towers into the unblemished blue sky, and there is an enormous office building under construction on another side. The latter almost left the artist exposed to the mercies of the Middle Eastern sun. “I almost lost this tree,” he says. “Before they put the foundations down for the office block, they drained all the groundwater.
Because of that, seawater seeped in and the tree started to wilt. I had to water the yard copiously to beat back the salty water. But as you can see, the tree is fine now.
There is this trend now to build as high as you can, and as quickly as you can. That’s just the way things are.”
Sometimes you get an idea of an artist’s persona from his or her work, only to be surprised by the very different corporeal being. But Meiri as a person is very much a matter of, what you see on the city walls is what you get face to face. He comes across as a highly engaging, fun, gregarious chap. He has also been doing his best to ensure that at least part of our daily urban landscape experience is enjoyable. His murals adorn street walls, public buildings, beachfront structures and the interiors of office and other buildings all over the country, and across the globe.
MEIRI SAYS he was always something of an oddball.
“I went to the Avni Institute [of Art and Design in Tel Aviv], but it was clear from the start that when we had student exhibitions my stuff would always be to one side,” he recalls. “I just didn’t fit in.”
But the young Meiri evidently had talent, and he received a resounding critical slap on the back from a highly prestigious arts outlet overseas. He says it all came about as a result of his go-with-the-flow ethos, and eventually spawned his most iconic work to date. “The face on the wall near Azrieli came from my trip to Brazil, and the trip happened serendipitously,” he recounts.
“One of the ways I managed to make ends meet, back then, was to take some my paintings to New York from time to time, and sell them there. I’d pack a few canvases in a wooden crate, pop over to the big city and try to peddle them.”
However, on one occasion, his peddling did not go according to plan. “I’d got to all sorts of places in [artsy New York district] SoHo – I’d call them stores for selling paintings rather than galleries, but they paid a lot better than places in Tel Aviv – and I’d also absorb lots of the art that was on-show in the museums and galleries in New York, and get inspiration for my own work.”
The initially unsuccessful foray to the Big Apple started out in adverse weather conditions. “I got there in January and I hadn’t expected it to be so cold,” says Meiri. That discomfort was exacerbated by a distinct downturn in business. “None of the places I had sold at in the past wanted my paintings, and there I was stuck with this crateload of paintings and not much money.”
But Meiri is made of sterner stuff and his luck began to change, eventually.
“I popped into the Whitney [Museum of American Art], and nearby I saw this fancy gallery. I didn’t think I stood much chance of selling them anything – they had paintings by Picasso and Cezanne in gold frames in the window – but I thought I’d try my luck anyway,” he relates.
He’d brought some photos of his paintings and the woman there was suitably impressed, so Meiri ended up lugging his crate to the gallery.
As the gallery employee explained it might take a while to dispense with his creations, Meiri decided it was time to get away from wintry New York for warmer climes. “While I was at the Metropolitan Museum I saw a picture by Gauguin [painted in Tahiti] and I thought, that’s what I need – sunshine. I am from the Middle East. I’ll go off to Brazil.” In Rio de Janeiro, Meiri soon hooked up with a young Brazilian woman who taught him some Portuguese, while he helped her improve her command of English. After getting a handle on the basics of the local language, Meiri took himself up north to Salvador, the home of the world-renowned carnival.
The jaunt up north left a lasting impression on Meiri, the man and the artist. “I was infused with the energy and colors of the carnival, and all the festivities and life in Salvador,” he recalls. “That put a lot of color into my art. That was just in time, too, because at the time my work was pretty much monochromic.”
Meanwhile, back in New York things were going well with the works Meiri had left in SoHo. “I’d call the gallery from time to time to see if she was making any progress with my paintings, and one day, after I’d been in Brazil for six months, she told me she’d sold the lot and that she had a pile of cash waiting for me.”
Meiri duly returned to the States to collect the bounty.
“I got to the gallery and saw an unframed painting of mine sandwiched between one work by Picasso and one by Cezanne. That was an incredible thing to see.”
When he got back to Israel, Meiri came across a discovery that was to launch his mural career, which inspired his best-known work. “I took a look at the rolls of film I’d taken in Brazil and, there among the photos of the carnival, was a snap of a toothless grinning man holding a baby’s bottle full of cachaa [Brazilian rum],” Meiri recalls. “That’s the guy on the wall opposite the Azrieli Towers. That’s the face that got me noticed. Life is full of going with the flow, isn’t it?” IT CERTAINLY is for Meiri, and he has been going with his sunny painting flow up and down the country for over 30 years. In fact, his first al fresco offering was out there for all to see in 1982, even though it didn’t last. It was a painting of a beach scene on a wall near Tel Aviv’s Gordon Street, overlooking the sea, near Meiri’s thenhome on Yehoash Street. Since, he has livened up the passersby’s day with fun works of, for example, a couple of kids careening up steps painted on to a wall near the corner of Ibn Gvirol Street and Arlosoroff Street in Tel Aviv, an eye-opening window sequence at Ashdod Port and another much bigger work that transforms a large, unfriendly concrete building wall into a dynamic scene with 3-D-looking colorful ship containers.
Ness Ziona is home to a particularly impressive Meiri creation, a bicycle path that bisects lush lawns. It also neatly juxtaposes a real cycle path. “I looked at that cold expanse of concrete wall, which runs along a bike path, and I suddenly realized that that is exactly what I should paint on the wall. I think it works nicely.
It does indeed, just like all of Meiri’s works. But the zest for life and attractive colors exuded by his murals feed off steely resolve.
“It is not easy being an artist,” Meiri declares. “For starters you have to believe in yourself, that you are good at what you do and can have some impact. You have to be able to develop your craft and produce things that interest people.”
Meiri’s efforts evidently have universal appeal.
In 2010 he created an eye-catching mural at Dafen Village in China’s Guangdong Province, and Meiri works brighten up local residents’ days in Fort Lauderdale, Florida;Cologne, Germany; and Buenos Aires, A r g e n t i n a .
“The mayor of Turin recently asked me if I could do something there, so it looks like the Italians will soon know who I am, too,” says Meiri with a smile.
Today, Meiri imparts some of his artistic skills and hard-earned life experience to schoolchildren, hi-tech executives and many betwixt. “When I speak to the kids I tell them that if they stick to something long enough, in the end they’ll find success,” the artist notes. “That’s the lesson I have learned in life. You’ve got to persevere, and not give up midstream.”
The beneficiaries of Meiri’s teaching talents are dotted all over the globe. His Tel Aviv studio is a regular stop off for groups of Taglit-Birthright participants, and much of the festooned walls of his premises on Hayarkon Street were painted by the above youngsters.
“We can all paint,” says Meiri. “These Taglit kids, for instance, come here in the prime of their life, and they take in so much information during their tour of the country. They need to express themselves, and unload some of the things they get here, and they do that very well when they come to me. Just look at my walls.”