Joshua Neustein
Israeli artist Joshua Neustein’s work concentrates on a comprehension of the fold, the tear, and the cut. In his use of these methods for the manipulation of paper, Neustein makes the viewer retrace the artist’s process–imagining a restraightening, realigning, and mending. The beholder is also forced to contemplate what is hidden under and behind the visible artwork.
Neustein’s construction during the formative years of “epistemic abstraction” (1968-72) were leaden gray, devoid of color. It was only in 1978 with the beginning of the Weimar series that he began to employ color, named for the failed Republic during which the violent palette and brush work of German expressionism conveyed the artists’ frustration, Neustein’s homage to Nolde, Kirschner, et al. is best expressed in his own words as an “attempt to paint portraits of paintings in their own debris.” The adjectives “fragile,” “torn,” and “impermanent” are frequently used to describe Neustein’s construction and apply as well to the work of other Israeli members of this movement (notably Pinchas Cohen Gan and Benni Efrat). These Israelis opt for destructive physical processes such as tearing, erasing, scratching, or optical negation of the physical surface through light.
Neustein has shown his work in numerous solo …
Israeli artist Joshua Neustein’s work concentrates on a comprehension of the fold, the tear, and the cut. In his use of these methods for the manipulation of paper, Neustein makes the viewer retrace the artist’s process–imagining a restraightening, realigning, and mending. The beholder is also forced to contemplate what is hidden under and behind the visible artwork.
Neustein’s construction during the formative years of “epistemic abstraction” (1968-72) were leaden gray, devoid of color. It was only in 1978 with the beginning of the Weimar series that he began to employ color, named for the failed Republic during which the violent palette and brush work of German expressionism conveyed the artists’ frustration, Neustein’s homage to Nolde, Kirschner, et al. is best expressed in his own words as an “attempt to paint portraits of paintings in their own debris.” The adjectives “fragile,” “torn,” and “impermanent” are frequently used to describe Neustein’s construction and apply as well to the work of other Israeli members of this movement (notably Pinchas Cohen Gan and Benni Efrat). These Israelis opt for destructive physical processes such as tearing, erasing, scratching, or optical negation of the physical surface through light.
Neustein has shown his work in numerous solo exhibitions among them at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris, Untitled in New York, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Mary Boone Gallery in New York, the Venice Biennale Israeli Pavilion, and more. Group exhibitions include the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Stadtisch Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf, Documenta Kassel, National Museum for Modern Art in Tokyo, the Barbican in London, and the Martin Gropius Bao in Berlin. He has been awarded prizes such as the Guggenheim Fellowship from the Dr. Georg and Josi Guggenheim Foundation, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Prize, and the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art from The Israel Museum.
Courtesy of the Jewish Museum
