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John Kiss (artist)

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Israeli street artist
John Kiss
BornJonathan Kis-Lev
(1985-09-12) September 12, 1985 (age 39)
Mishmar Ayalon, Israel
NationalityIsraeli
EducationPearson College UWC
Known forPublic art, Stenciling
Notable workThe Peace Kids
27 Club Graffiti in Tel Aviv
Websitekis-lev.com

John Kiss (born Jonathan Kis-Lev, September 12, 1985) is an Israeli street artist, peace activist and author, known for his graffiti work, political artwork and community-based projects. Having been involved in peace activism since his youth, his work centers on the transformative capacity of art; notable works include The Peace Kids Mural and the 27 Club graffiti in Tel Aviv.

Biography

Jonathan Kislev (later John Kiss) was born to parents who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union. The family settled in Mishmar Ayalon, where he took private art lessons. At the age of eleven, he attended a peace art camp in Nablus funded by USAID. Meeting Palestinian children for the first time sparked his interest in peacemaking. He began to see how art could create bridges. At the age of 13, he joined a Jewish-Arab youth movement.

Kiss studied art in Tel Aviv, and at Pearson College in British Columbia and studied there for two years, majoring in Visual Arts.

He later earned his bachelor's degree summa cum laude from the Open University of Israel focusing on art and psychology.

Kiss is a board member of the Israeli League of Esperanto Speakers and the president of the Young Esperanto Speakers. He is a member of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Israel, as well as the Israeli Association of Visual Artists.

Art career

Kiss was inspired to use of bright color in his public art by artists such as Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Gaudi. Many of his graffiti art is in South Tel Aviv, especially Florentin. Untypical among street artists, Kiss used his real name in his work rather than a pseudonym. As his works became "identified by his signature logo of an elf", he began working with cutout stencils, which soon became Kiss' go-to method, mostly for the speed they allowed to complete the painting and leave the scene within minutes.

Homage to Banksy as seen from the street
Spray Me! Alice's Adventures in Wonderland mural

Kiss substituted the glass bottle with a graffiti spray can, changing the inscription on the bottle from "Drink me" to "Spray me" in capital letters. This large-scale work is in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood using large stencil boards made by the artist in advance. Annika Ramsaier of Goethe-Institut praised the work and art magazines noted its uniqueness. The painting became a symbol of graffiti in the local area as well as the street art scene.

Poisoning the Youth

This depicts the witch as it appeared in Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

27 Club graffiti in Tel Aviv

Main article: 27 Club graffiti in Tel Aviv
The 27 Club Graffiti

Kiss' next work, in 2014, depicted seven artists from the "27 Club". Veering away from some of his previous work, Kiss began obsessively researching famous artists who died early, particularly the "27 Club", and began sketching portraits of them. His eventual work included, from left to right: Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and the figure of the artist. Kiss decided to include a portrait of himself as well, with the intention of erasing his own portrait when (if) he would turn 28, but it was only after he reached that age that he set to finally create the mural. Kiss wished to portray an "uplifting" portrait of these individuals and their lives, and painted the portraits of the famous artists in colors, but left his own portrait at the far right in gray. He chose a prominent wall at the heart of Tel Aviv (on Haim Ben Atar Street). Kiss was assisted by fellow artists Itai Froumin and Roman Kozhokin to execute the piece, which spans 3 m (9.8 ft) high by 7 m (23 ft) wide.

In order to avoid heavy fines and convince police that the work was commissioned, Kiss and his team wore yellow vests and helmets like city hall workers, rented a crane and pasted signs on the crane as "Property of the Tel Aviv Municipality". Art journalist Zipa Kampinski covered the mural's secretive creation process. " Over the years, the work has become known as one of Israel's must-see street artworks and has been featured in the Israeli street art documentary The Streets Are Ours ("HaRehovot Hem Shelanu"), becoming a became a symbol of the 27 club and receiving international coverage. The site had become a meeting point for tours and the wall underneath it is now filled with graffiti by multiple artists from around the world. It became a symbol of the gentrification process in South Tel Aviv. Time Out Magazine cited Kiss' work among "The most beautiful in Tel Aviv", mayor of Tel Aviv (Ron Huldai) office, which eventually advertised street-art tours and featured Kiss' 27 Club graffiti in Tel Aviv.

The Peace Kids

Main article: The Peace Kids (mural)
The Peace Kids in Bethlehem

In his next art piece, Kiss painted "The Peace Kids" murals in two places: Tel Aviv, Israel and Bethlehem, Palestine. It was made in Bethlehem with Palestinian artist Moodi Abdallah. The art work was extensively covered by Yedioth Ahronoth, Reform Magazine, and others. The work subsequently became a symbol for peace, repainted by other artists, reproduced on shirts, included in artistic films, and appearing on posters and peace conferences invitations.

The Naïve Series: While his street art often confronted viewers with unpleasant messages, including social injustice and the existence of war and violence, in his Naïve Series Kiss hoped to create the exact opposite, with paintings that will bring "happiness and love" to viewers. For this Naïve art approach - which typically has flat rendering style with a rudimentary expressions of perspective and strong primary colors - and to achieve a more "childish" result he used his left hand, despite being right-handed; furthermore, he drew some paintings when the canvas was placed upside down, so that elements such as the sky were placed on the bottom, and chose canvases with a black layer. In the Naïve Series Kiss focused on paintings of landscapes, mostly urban, of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, as well as Paris, Prague and other cities around the world which he had visited. The landscapes, however, were intentionally "distorted, objects are crooked, the horizon is rounded, achieving a naïve look."

Other art and social projects

Other projects: In 2012, Kiss partnered with Makor Rishon magazine to produce their cover image featuring a painting of Jerusalem. The cover also included an excerpt from German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig's writings. The Kiss painting, Love to Jerusalem, was painted to show his love for the city, in which he lived at the time.

The autism murals: Kiss then created an art installation from the joint drawings of these 200 children. These illustrations, colored by the autistic boys and girls, were joined to a large-scale mural. The mural, presented at Jerusalem's Western Wall, drew public attention to the cause of inclusion. Presenting the 200-piece-mural in front of Judaism's holiest site was to encourage Jewish reflection at what Kiss called "the dark rejection" of people with special needs, and to turn the page towards a more positive, inclusive future. The children who participated in the initiative, both boys and girls, were subsequently all aided in performing the bar mitzvah ceremony, essentially proving their adulthood according to Jewish tradition.

Galleries

In 2007, Kiss had a solo exhibition in Tel Aviv, titled Beginnings: Neve Tsedek and Jaffa; and attended by notable visitors including Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, marking his debut in the Israeli art world. In 2007, his work was featured at the Beit Gibor center, the Joï Gallery in Neve Tzedek, and over a dozen paintings were acquired by Israel's Bank Leumi as part of their permanent art collection. In 2009 Kiss had a solo exhibition at the Shorashim Art Gallery pavilion at the International Bank, Tel Aviv, and another exhibition curated by Esti Drori and Doron Polak. The event was followed by exhibitions in Berlin, Toronto and Miami. In 2010 he showed a solo exhibition at The Edge Gallery in Nahariya, and, at age 25, was the youngest artist to hold a solo exhibition in the gallery. In that exhibition he showed large-scale, 6-meter long triptychs portraying the city out of a window. In 2011 he had a solo exhibition at the Art and Soul Gallery in Jerusalem; he later showed his paintings at the ZOA Gallery in Tel Aviv, curated by Doron Polak.

In 2013 he showed a solo exhibition at the Griffin Gallery in Boca Raton, Florida, titled The City of Songs: Paintings of a Modern Jerusalem. In 2015 he showed his paintings at "O Lovely Land", GINA Gallery of International Naïve Art, Tel Aviv. In 2016 he had a solo exhibition at the Art and Soul Gallery in Jerusalem, and a year later had a second solo exhibition, "Next Year in Jerusalem" at the Griffin Gallery in Boca Raton, Florida. at the Gallery of International Naïve Art in Tel Aviv.

Peace activism

Joint encounter groups: Kiss joined hands with the German Federal Agency for Civil Education, and its president Thomas Krüger, to bring together young leaders from Israel and Palestine to Germany to promote Middle Eastern peace while simultaneously learning civic principles, conflict resolution and peace psychology. Following this project, he began mediation workshops titled "Is peace possible?" encouraging young people to play an active mediating role in the conflict between Muslims and Jews in the Holy Land, lecturing about his approach to solving the conflict, calling for better education for all children, encounters with the other side of the conflict, and ensuring that Arabs and Jews have equal rights and security, while embracing dialogue and coexistence. He joined the Tikvah Leadership Forum at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, and subsequently was selected as a young member of Israeli President Shimon Peres' Young Leaders Forum.

Artists For Peace: At age 26, in efforts to use art as a bridge between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Kiss joined the Bereaved Families for Peace, which was originally created to accommodate meetings between families berieaving a lost member due to the conflict (while Kiss had no immediate family member killed due to the conflict, he lost friends in wars). He joined the organization and participated in the establishment of the first joint Palestinian-Israeli artists group within the organization's Narratives Project. The artists group brought together an equal number of artists from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The group focused on both narratives, the Israeli and the Palestinian. As part of understanding the Palestinian narrative, the group studied about the Nakba and visited the Palestinian village Lifta; for the Israeli narrative the group learned extensively about the Holocaust and visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum (which subsequently began accommodating Arabic-speaking groups).

The Hallelujah Dialogue Project: In 2014, due to the rising violence during the uprising known as the Silent Intifada, Kiss joined hands with Palestinian activist Riman Barakat of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information and Breaking the Impasse. Together, they began to convene meetings in Jerusalem encouraging dialogue, in a project that was called The Hallelujah Dialogue Project. As part of the project, Kiss introduced the Jerusalem Arab-Jewish Youth Chorus to project participants.

It's Time For Peace: In 2017 Kiss came together with a group of Israelis and Palestinians who "wholeheartedly believe that peace and reconciliation between the two peoples is possible, and want to put an end to the occupation and live together, side by side, in peace." Working through social media and in one-on-one interactions, the meetings were co-led by both Palestinian and Israeli facilitators, "to encourage both sides to get to know each other" and were followed by a campaign of joint photographs of Jews and Arabs showing their friendships on social media.

The Peace Envelopes: In 2019 two key dates convened: the 40th anniversary of Israel's peace agreement with Egypt and the 25th anniversary of Israel's peace agreement with Jordan. To commemorate the round-number anniversaries Kiss joined other artists in creating an exhibition in Jerusalem to mark the important dates and to encourage such treaties to be reached with Syria and the Palestinians. Curator Iris Elhanani said the exhibition was to express the artists' "longing and dream for peace and tranquility."

Further reading

References

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