Dan Allon
Contemporary Art
Installation view - photos: Luka Knežević-Strika
Not the Best Day (2017) is a solo exhibition by Dan Allon at Ostavinska Galerija, Belgrade, presenting a series of drawings created between 2013–2015. Made with black marker on paper (21 × 29.7 cm), each drawing is titled Untitled and was produced first thing in the morning, resembling an associative writing exercise. The images capture fleeting dreams and nightmares in the moments after waking—at once humorous, grotesque, and melancholic.
The exhibition title echoes a common Israeli response to the question “How are you?”—often used when the day begins poorly. Reflecting anxiety, uncertainty, and fragile emotional states, the drawings form an intimate record of two years of the artist’s life, portraying a vulnerable dreamer navigating everyday unease.
Curators: Luka Knežević-Strika, Jelena Mijic
Ostavinska Galerija, Belgrade
June 2017
PRESS HERE FOR A RADIO INTERVIEW ABOUT THE EXHIBITION (time: 21:24")
Special thanks: MKM Belgrade, Mariana Zanetti
Day and Knife (2018) is a four-person exhibition featuring Dan Allon, Olaf Kühnemann, Hugo Mayer, and Daniel M. Thurau. Bringing together painting, drawing, and wall-based works, the exhibition explores melancholic and symbolic imagery through a tragicomic visual language. Seas, moons, clouds, houses, and shadowy figures appear as stage-like elements, creating scenes populated by wandering, longing, or haunted characters.
Dan Allon contributes nightmarish caricatures based on drawings made immediately after waking. Enlarged as acrylic paintings on the gallery walls and windows, and accompanied by freely distributed xerox copies, the works translate dream imagery into stark graphic narratives of desire, crime, and vulnerability. Together, the artists construct a contemplative and surreal atmosphere where symbols of romance, violence, and melancholy unfold like fragments of a theatrical set.
Artists: Dan Allon, Olaf Kühnemann, Hugo Mayer, Daniel M. Thurau
Curator: Ofir Dor
Special thanks: Alona Harpaz, Levke Tabbert, Mariana Zanetti
Photos: Levke Tabbert, Inma Moreno
Cherries – a group exhibition, Hayarkon 19 gallery, Tel Aviv, 2017
Acrylic on the wall, 5.10 x 3.90 meter, 2017
Curator: Boaz Arad
Photo: Goni Riskin