Absalon
Published on 11. March 2011
Book
352 pages
978-3-86560-952-6 (ISBN)
Description
Ausgehend von Fragen nach den essentiellen Tätigkeiten des Menschen und basierend auf den Grundformen Rechteck, Quadrat, Dreieck und Kreis beginnt der israelische Künstler Absalon 1987 damit, vorgefundene Räume zu entleeren, neu zu strukturieren und mit einfachen Formen zu füllen. Die Versuchsanordnungen, die er in Objekten, Zeichnungen, Fotografien und Filmen weiterentwickelt, finden ihre Vollendung in den Cellules - individualisierten, asketischen Wohneinheiten. Anlässlich der umfassenden Retrospektive in den KW Institute for Contemporary Art erscheint mit dieser Publikation sowohl ein "Catalogue Raisonée" als auch eine Monografie. Das Oeuvre Absalons wird durch den Katalog erstmals komplett abgebildet und wissenschaftlich aufbereitet.
The Israeli artist Absalon was fascinated by spaces, which he reworked in systematic and successive ways with questions around essential human activities and basic geometric forms (the rectangular, the square, the triangle and the circle) being his points of departure. It was in 1987 that he started to empty out the spaces he found before eventually restructuring and refilling them with the help of simple forms. These test assemblies - further developed later on by means of objects, drawings, photographs and films - came full circle in Absalon's Cellules: individualized, ascetic and contemplative living units.This new publication on the occasion of the extensive retrospective at the KW Institute of Contemporary Art qualifies both as a "Catalogue Raisonée" and a monograph. The catalogue is the first to ever offer illustrations and theory covering Absalon's entire oeuvre.
The Israeli artist Absalon was fascinated by spaces, which he reworked in systematic and successive ways with questions around essential human activities and basic geometric forms (the rectangular, the square, the triangle and the circle) being his points of departure. It was in 1987 that he started to empty out the spaces he found before eventually restructuring and refilling them with the help of simple forms. These test assemblies - further developed later on by means of objects, drawings, photographs and films - came full circle in Absalon's Cellules: individualized, ascetic and contemplative living units.This new publication on the occasion of the extensive retrospective at the KW Institute of Contemporary Art qualifies both as a "Catalogue Raisonée" and a monograph. The catalogue is the first to ever offer illustrations and theory covering Absalon's entire oeuvre.
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Persons
Absalon, geboren 1964 unter dem Namen Meir Eshel in Aschdod, Israel, ging 1987 nach Paris, wo er bis zu seinem frühen Tod 1993 arbeitete. In nur wenigen Jahren schuf er ein Werk von außergewöhnlicher Komplexität und Geschlossenheit, das - obwohl unvollendet - nie fragmentarisch bleibt. Absalon was born in 1964 as Meir Eshel in Ashdod, Israel, and relocated to Paris in 1987 where he would live and work until his premature death in 1993. In only a few years he created an oeuvre of exceptional complexity and consistency, which-although unfinished-never appears fragmentary.