DAVID RABINOWITCH (1943* Toronto, Canada)
Phantom Group – Sculptures and Works on Paper from 1967
The artist has never left any doubt that he develops and elaborates sculptures and that these sculptures are constructions, albeit constructions that have to be seen as actual inventions. The development of the works does not occur directly on the material, but through drawings, outlines, models and after 1967 with true-to-scale plans, the templates. This approach allows him to keep groups of works as a larger number of finished works in this form and to realize individual or multiple sculptures at a later point in time. Otherwise the work cycles would be incomplete and we would be denied conclusive insights into the results and coherencies of the complex constellations of the artistic ideas.
Views and insights as a unity of artistic experience and experience of the artwork are evoked by the sculptures of David Rabinowitch and the pretension can be understood literally. Visual and intellectual comprehension are mutually dependent and substantiate, even legitimize the reception of the art. Visual and intellectual pleasure stand for a holistic understanding of art.
The sculptures of the Phantom Group lie on the floor. They are constructed from rolled steel and feature straight and rounded demarcations. The circumambulatory nature of the works is of fundamental significance, for this enables the viewer to access the different opposing views of the objects. The vertical bending of the sheet of steel achieves volume and three-dimensional spatiality. The view is led as well as misled and, depending on the standpoint of the viewer, dynamized or contrary perspectives are suggested. The plane resting on the floor is thus articulated, shaped and internal and external relations are consolidated in an intrinsically coherent totality. Each potential view is different yet still a valid view of the overall sculpture.
Our exhibition presents several sculptures from the Phantom Group as well as models created from painted cardboard and from copper and rolled steel. Deserving special mention are the energetic and powerful drawings from 1967.
"The dual order of construction – opposed (upper and lower) vertical breaking, and the conic limiting conditions of extension – together make up an operating ground for two phases of observation: the differentiation between unique locations and correspondent appearances, and the full disclosure of essential physical components from any one of these standpoints. A resolution is thus achieved between the maintenance of sufficient distinction among appearances (the reality of location) and the imperative that each of these be understood as a complete thing adequately embodying the totality of construction. The disappearance of properties, associated with private stances, hitherto necessary to establish the required differentiation, has, at this point, been set on a public basis." David Rabinowitch, 1967.
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