GALLERY / EXHIBITIONS
EXHIBITIONS
Reuven Israel
SLIP SLIDIN’
16.05.2022 – 25.06.2022
SLIP SLIDIN'
Sevil Dolmaci Art Gallery is delighted to present Reuven Israel’s first solo exhibition in Turkey. Featuring over twenty sculptures and drawings that span the past decade, Israel has also created new pieces for the exhibition, which occupies the entire Villa Ipranosyan.
Israel’s practice most often takes the form of aggregate sculptures that can appear as machine-made; however, this is an illusion painstakingly created by the artist. In an era of 3-D printing and digitally born content, Israel grounds his work in slow, human endeavor and delights in the process of making each sculpture by hand, from selecting the wood and creating the shapes to creating colors and finishes. Each work is meticulously crafted to the point of appearing mass-produced.
The title of the exhibition is inspired by Paul Simon’s song “Slip Slidin’ Away”:
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip sliding away…
Simon’s existential lyrics are an apt metaphor for Israel’s works: ever in flux, the sculptures are in constant evolution and need never remain as static objects. A folding system that the artist creates for each work means allows for variable shapes and configurations depending on the space in which it is shown. The artist has also been known to change the configuration of the works throughout the duration of an exhibition; thus, visitors may experience different shows upon subsequent visits to the gallery.
Five sculptures from the UFO (Untitled Folding Object) series (2019 – 2021) snake and curl around the villa’s interior architecture. The artist intends his work as less associative and rather concerned with the transition from two- to three-dimensional form; however, some of the folding works obliquely suggest references from everyday life—a standing figure, an arch, a spiral—and are masterful in their commanding of space with barely more than lines. Indeed, the negative space is as important as their denser materiality.
A new wall-based work, Slip Slidin’, carries on from earlier kinetic works such as FAF (Fast and Furious) 2013 and BER (Bigger Egyptian Rumba) 2014, which are also included in this exhibition. In these sculptures, whether floor or wall-based, the artist invites the viewer or collector to make their own configuration of the elements, at times revealing hidden colors and shapes. The dynamism of these works is part of their compelling nature.
In addition to the aggregated sculptures, other sculptural works are propped on walls or on floors, thus making use of almost every plane of the architecture. Drawings by Israel, including six new works on paper based on the aggregated works, are interspersed throughout the exhibition. Working in dialogue with the three-dimensional work, the drawings lend insight into the artist’s process, experimenting with combinations of colors and shapes. It is in these works that the viewer sees most clearly the artist’s interrogation of two to three dimensions.
Reuven Israel was born in Jerusalem (1978) and works and lives in Brooklyn, NY. He received his BFA and MFA from the prestigious Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. He has had recent solo exhibitions at the Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv-Yafo; the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and Museum Civico Floriano Bodini in Germonio, Italy. His work has been presented at major international art fairs including UNTITLED Miami, Expo Chicago, NADA NY, Art Brussels and Artissima, among others. He is the recipient of several important art prizes and his work is included in public and private collections around the world. He is represented by Braverman Gallery, Tel Aviv and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles.
Slip Slidin’ is curated by Dr Kathy Battista. The curator and the artist will be present at the opening of the exhibition. A walk through with the artist and curator at 11am on Friday, May 13th, and is free and open to the public.