It's rare that the public is familiar with an artist's work and not with the artist behind it, but such is the case with graphic designer Dan Reisinger, whose career spans 60 years and reads like a what'swhat of iconic Israeli companies. The Serbian-born Reisinger is a designer of posters, calendars, logos, paintings and entire company identities. His father perished in the Holocaust, along with the majority of his family. Reisinger himself was hidden by Serbian families and spared from the Nazis. In 1949, at the age of 15, he immigrated to Israel with his mother. He graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and went on to serve in the Israel Air Force as art director of the publications department. This set the stage for the artist to go on to serve and represent his country in a different way, on a national scale through his designs. Reisinger's work has been shown in a multitude of international and one-person exhibitions over the past six decades. Now it is being showcased at the Israel Museum in an exhibition titled “In Full Color: 60 Years of Design by Dan Reisinger,” including works of Reisinger's that have never before been available for public viewing. The exhibition was prompted by Reisinger's recent decision to gift his collection to the museum. This meant that 60 years' worth of work was carefully transferred to the collections over the past few years. The exhibition also includes a book of interviews with Reisinger that promise to give insight both visually and textually to his artistic perspective. Written in Hebrew, the book is the first comprehensive overview of his work and career. Dan Handel, the curator of “In Full Color,” insists that the book is not a catalogue, but rather an artistic endeavor that includes a complete list of his work. Before this, only minor catalogues from exhibitions were available. Reisinger was intimately involved in putting the book together. “'In Full Color' is different from his previous exhibitions,” Handel says. “We decided to focus on the final product. Reisinger is a graphic designer, so the final product is usually very aesthetically pleasing. In this case, it was an opportunity to delve deeper into the processes behind these designs. “The second thing we considered is how familiar his work is to so many Israelis, even though they may not know who was behind it. He has designed so many familiar icons of the Israeli visual landscape. One idea we had is that people would go to the exhibition, recognize all these things, and then suddenly make the connection between who was behind all of these designs.” Reisinger's resumé includes the Teva and Delek gas station logos. Calling these familiar to Israelis is an understatement. Handel points out that the museum has received a lot of feedback from viewers that they are in awe that one person is behind all of these iconic images. In a way, Reisinger's designs shaped Israel's image during its formative years. Handel notes that it was important that the museum have the exhibition accessible to non-Israelis as well. Since many museumgoers are tourists, Handel curated the work featured in such a way that it tells a story about design and reflects larger processes that Israeli society underwent, which are universally engaging. In the first two decades of the State of Israel, companies were attempting to figure out what the right visual language was. Since there was no tradition of graphic design yet, Reisinger was truly a pioneer. “When you see the work in this light, you have a different understanding of how design is related to larger cultural, social, and even political contexts,” Handel adds. “If you look at his early work, he is looking for the right way to define what Israeli design is, in the sense of trying to figure out what the products of Israeli culture could look like. What would an Israeli commercial look like? All of these things were not there before, so when he designed his early posters, you can really see this search for a national identity through a visual identity.” This is exemplified in the posters Reisinger created for Israel's Independence Day, as well as what he designed for international events like the Expo of 1967 in Montreal. In this way, he was responsible for how Israel was communicated both internally and externally, especially during the 1950s and 60s. In the late 1970s Reisinger designed a 50-meter-long aluminum cast relief at Yad Vashem, featuring a biblical quotation, harking back to his own family's history and pain, and that of the Jewish people as a whole. “From my perspective, he speaks of the power of design to be very present and shape the way you understand time and place,” Handel shares. “I live next to Tel Aviv and when I drive home, I see lots of things that he designed – from the Delek gas station to the big El Al logo at Ben-Gurion [Airport]. It speaks of a certain agency that design has to build a visual language. More specifically, it speaks of the capacity of the designer to always expand his responsibilities. “If you follow his projects, what you often find is that he was asked to do one thing and then he proposed another thing. In many cases, what he proposed was the final project. It could start with a logo and end with the color of 200 gas stations around Israel. It could start with a calendar and end with a total identity project. He's very smart about how he defines and redefines his role. It's a great lesson for graphic designers today.” If Reisinger is setting the example, then graphic designers are not only service providers or logo creators, but much more. They have the capacity to transform the way the public views and interacts with a company. With Delek, Reisinger designed its key chains, typography, and the color scheme of the gas stations themselves, in addition to the logo. With El Al, Reisinger designed both the interior and exterior of the planes, as well as the logo and brochures. In this way, he represents a cross-scale way of thinking about design that is unconstrained. This multi-sectional kind of graphic design is evident in the projects shown in the exhibition. The viewer is able to trace an individual project to this same kind of macro thinking. “Many materials that we're showing in the exhibition were never shown before,” Handel continues. “His drawings were not usually shown. There are a lot of things to see that were never seen before. He didn't design the exhibition, but he approved the materials that we are showing. He didn't want to see each object and approve it; he was very generous in providing us the space to build the narrative, which we're grateful for.” The most popular pieces of work in the exhibition have been Reisinger's calendars, which are a series that he developed for different companies. The first ones were in the 1960s. Reisinger developed an innovative calendar that the company could send out to its clients that was integrative and colorful, showcasing the products with cutouts that became almost interactive. The Israel Museum produced videos for the exhibition that demonstrate how one can look through the calendars. According to Handel, they have been extremely well received by museumgoers. Another favorite is the El Al project, which Reisinger worked on for 30 years and comprises many stages. Lastly, his early works, such as the posters from the 1950s, have a nostalgic flair to which people tend to be drawn. Reisinger's work, once familiar only as it was attached to the companies it represented, has been given new meaning and new life with the exhibition, allowing people to peek behind the curtain at one of Israel's most important and influential designers. “Reisinger was very successful commercially and was so occupied working that he didn't spend much time spreading the word about his work,” Handel explains. “All of the relevant people knew about it, but he wasn't as familiar even to other designers. Students today need to be introduced to his work, which I find peculiar. He is one of the top designers in Israeli graphic design, so I hope that the exhibition is doing something about that.” “In Full Color” is on display at the Israel Museum until November. For more information on the exhibition and the designer himself, visit: www.imj.org.il/en/events/full-color-60-years-design-dan-reisinger www.danreisinger.com/main.htm
Art works by Dan Reisinger(photo credit: ARIEL DOMINIQUE HENDELMAN)ByARIEL DOMINIQUE HENDELMANRead More