In the exhibition “The First Eastern Astronaut”, Asaf Hanukah continues the journey of a creator, father, spouse and Israeli citizen who tries to deal with existential anxiety with the help of humor, wild imagination and silent despair. His acclaimed and Eisner Award-winning work creates a unique reading experience, combining charged intimate situations and sober observation of a complex reality, which together make his comic stories a modern classic.
Assaf says that in the Israel of the early 1980s, the presence of Mizrahi cultural heroes was not felt. In his childhood, reflections of him and his family members were absent from the Israeli-cultural space. The feeling of ostracism created in him an alienation towards the local culture and pushed him to other regions. One was American pop culture and especially its superheroes, each of whom had a secret identity; Clark Kent, the faded clerk, is the alter ego of Superman, just as the old Mizrahi is the alter ego of Assaf Hanukkah.
Asaf Hanukkah He is not a funny person. When he has a dull pain somewhere, when he feels that something bothers him persistently and does not go away, he looks for a dark corner to stop, look straight into the body inside, see what is there, find a visual image for it and draw it.
His comic strips are usually made up of nine squares arranged in three rows, but occasionally a single illustration takes up the entire page. These are pictures from the everyday life of a normative family man, showing a seemingly typical Israeli routine, but underneath the familiar and banal, feelings of horror and existential anxiety constantly emerge. The placement of an everyday thing next to something else, out of the ordinary and larger than life itself, creates a mystery, a kind of spectacular visual puzzle whose cracking gives rise to a unique emotional experience.
About Assaf Hanukkah
Assaf Hanukah, head of the visual communication department at Shankar, was born in 1974. He is an Israeli comic artist and cartoonist. Winner of the 2016 Eisner Award and the 2019 Dosh Cartoon Award. Lives in Tel Aviv with his wife, the illustrator and curator Hilit Shafer, and their two children.
Sef Hanukkah gained worldwide publicity thanks to his autobiographical work in a weekly comic page published in “Mosef Calcalist” for more than ten years, in which he documents the ups and downs of everyday life in a period of social, cultural and political instability.
Assaf Hanukkah grew up on the pathos of American superheroes. Throughout his childhood years he drew muscles, fists and battles held in the sky, and when he was an adult he updated his works. Today his works depict a simple and mundane life, and he paints himself in the place where he is, here and now, in everyday Israeli reality. Next to him, the superheroes reappear and appear together with elements far from the American comics of his childhood – joining a self-portrait.
Hanukkah himself writes the text accompanying the illustrations, but the illustrations do not describe him directly but tell a story on another, visual level. Therefore, in some of the strips, deciphering the connection between the illustration and the text is up to the reader. Throughout the years he illustrated for newspapers he was required to find catchy visual images for fairly abstract terms. This skill serves him now when he searches for visual images to describe feelings or relationships. He borrows commercial tools from the world of visual communication and uses them as a tool to create an autobiography.
Assaf Hanukkah’s illustrations are admirable, realistic with imaginative and exaggerated flashes. He has an excellent technical ability to express in a few lines certain facial expressions full of emotion, which, together with the body positions of the characters, illustrate moods with amazing precision.
Something good is happening in Holon: Exhibitions, workshops, guided tours and events at the cartoon and comics museum in the city
The Meditech and the Israel Cartoon and Comics Museum offer for the Tishrei holidays: a special tour with Tzachi Farber, the curator of the exhibition “The First Israeli Astronaut”, a holiday greeting card design workshop, comics about the morning, a “Do it yourself” workshop, family Shabbat – comics “Everything in the Head” and tours Guided to the general public in the museum exhibitions
The Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics caters to tens of thousands of fans of the medium, who benefit from varied and rich activities. The museum exposes visitors to the art of caricature in its entirety, with the aim of promoting the recognition of the existence and necessity of caricature. The museum’s archive contains tens of thousands of original works, press clippings and physical or digital books, preserved and organized according to the high standards of art museums.
Holiday greeting card design workshop :
The workshop includes designing and drawing personal greeting cards for the new year. Holiday greetings that come out of the box, inspired by the worlds of comics and cartoons, guided by the museum staff.
Saturday 24.09.22| at 11:00 | Ages 8 and up The workshop includes a guided tour of the exhibits at 10:30
“Everything in mind” comics workshop:
How do you turn thoughts into a comic story? In the workshop “Everything in the head” we will design a character’s head and draw a short comic strip inside it about what happens in the head.
The activity will take place every Saturday during the month of September. at 11:00. Ages 7 and up. The workshop includes a guided tour of the exhibits at 10:30 and 12:30
“Do it yourself” workshop:
Grandmothers, grandfathers, parents and children are invited to try creating comics for the whole family with a personal comic kit for each participant.
The activity will take place every Friday during the month of September at 11:30 | Ages 3-100 . The workshop includes a guided tour of the exhibitions with pre-registration at 10:30.
A special tour with Tzachi Farber, curator of the exhibition “The First Israeli Astronaut”:
During the tour we will examine the collection of comic strips by Assaf Hanukah, one of the top illustrators and comic creators working in Israel today. Comic works that present a humorous and critical point of view from the everyday life of a normative family man and raise complex issues in Israeli society. Under the direction of the curator of the exhibition, Tzachi Farber.
The tour will take place on Saturday 09/17/22 at 12:30 p.m
Guided tours for the general public in the museum exhibitions:
During the month of August, there will be guided tours for visitors to the exhibitions “Assaf Hanukkah – The First Israeli Astronaut”, “Viewing Warning”, “Men, Men – Competition by Stern Friedel.
The tours will take place on Fridays at 10:30 a.m. and Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. during the month of September
About the Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics in Holon
“The Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics” is an art museum dedicated to the field of cartoons and comics in Israel and around the world. The museum opened in 2007.
The Israeli Cartoon and Comics Museum was inaugurated As an initiative of the cartoonists union in Israel and the municipality of Holon. Its purpose is to promote the art of caricature, comics and animation into a recognized art. The museum aims to function as an experiential-learning environment, while enabling research and experimentation with the field, learning different techniques and encouraging new creations through exhibitions, competitions and prizes.
The museum was established on the top floor of an old building, the Education Administration Building, located in the center of the city of Holon and it covers an exhibition area of 430 square meters. Among the permanent displays showing the history of cartoons and comics in the world and in Israel, the “timeline of cartoons, comics and animation” is illustrated. , which presents the sequence of development of the fields throughout history; “Hebrew publicist cartoonist”, which contains video interviews with six Israeli cartoonists.
Along with these permanent displays, the museum presents a number of exhibitions and changing exhibitions, on an area of approximately 250 square meters, dedicated to Israeli and international comics and caricatures. Among the exhibitions presented in the museum, the series of exhibitions from Zeev’s works stands out; a series of three historical exhibitions called “Hebrew Comics” (2008 , 2010, 2014) who reviewed the history of the field in Israel; “Heroes” (2012), which presented the works of Joe Kitbert and more.
At the entrance to the museum, sculptures of comic and caricature characters by various Israeli artists were placed. In addition, nearby is a sculpture garden of the works of the Israeli sculptor Yigal Tomarkin, established in 1972.
The establishment of the Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comics is a dream come true for the community of cartoonists and comic artists in Israel. The museum caters to tens of thousands of fans of the medium, who benefit here from a permanent framework of extensive activity in the field. The museum exposes visitors to the art of caricature on its layers, connections and qualities, with the aim of promoting the understanding and recognition of the existence and necessity of caricature as a critical tool in society and comics as a literary genre with depth.
The museum encourages research on cartoons in Israel as a reflection and criticism of the local mindset.
The museum archive contains tens of thousands of original works, press clippings and books thanks to the dedication and generosity of dozens of donors. Collections that were a life’s work and collections that were a secondary hobby – today they are part of the archive collection, physical or digital, preserved and organized according to the high standards of art museums.
The establishment of the museum is the result of a joint initiative of the mayor of Holon, Moti Sasson, the Holon Theater and the Israeli Cartoonists Union.
Today, the museum is part of a creative cultural complex, Meditech Holon, which includes the Design Museum, Cinematech Holon, the Meditech Theater, the Materials Library, the Center for Digital Art and the Central Library.
Information and opening hours of the museum:
Sundays: The museum is closed
Monday, Wednesday: 10:00 – 13:00
Tuesdays, Thursdays: 17:00 – 20:00
Fridays: 10:00-14:00
Saturdays: 10:00 – 15:00
Museum address: Haim Weizman 61 Holon.
Email address – [email protected]
The website of the museum https://cartoon.org.il