Druksland

Michael Druks

1974–1975

Heat map in the shape of a human face.
Druks was commissioned to create this self-portrait in the form of a topographical map, by Steendrukkerij de Jong & Co., a large European printing house, who used it as a promotional gift for their clients. But it also quickly got attention in the art world as an important conceptual artwork. Druks experimented with mapping, a universal visual idiom, to use “international and visual language for individual purposes.” Configured in the shape of his head, the map has features like bodies of water and labels for local coordinates that correspond to events, people (e.g., artists), and places in his life—as well as to his political orientation.

Credits

© Michael Druks. Courtesy of Beardsmore Gallery, London.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 10.

Engage with this Source

Creator Bio

Michael Druks

1940–2022

Conceptual artist Michael Druks achieved renown as one of Israel’s most dynamic young artists in the 1960s–1970s with a body of work that includes painting, installations, and video. Druksland is part of a series that explores mapping as an artistic language. Druks’s work has been the subject of a number of solo exhibitions, including a career retrospective at the Museum of Art Ein Harod (2007). He has also participated in the Paris Biennale (1975) and documenta 6 (1977). He has lived in London since the 1970s.

You may also like

Tolstoy and the Jews

I have often been asked, and still am asked, whether I know from my frequent conversations with Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy about his attitudes toward the Jews. I am asked whether I spoke with him on…
View Source
Painting of many people in a crowded outdoor space.
Tooltip info icon

The Poultry Market

Pissarro inhabited the French countryside villages of Pontoise and Eragny and was a keen observer of rural life. His dignified depictions of peasant labor and sociability, such as this lively poultry…
View Source