Gabriel Klasmer: The Face, Landscape, Gesture and The Monochrome
3 Oct 2007 - 8 Nov 2007
In the 1980s, Gabriel Klasmer invented his first painting machines. They arose from a fascination with modernist art which drew his attention to the monochrome, described by Ad Reinhardt as ‘the last painting possible’. Admiring the monochrome for its radical clarity, absurdity and implicit finality, Klasmer sought to overcome its limits by developing devices to allow him to create myriad abstract paintings of the same fundamental structure. While the origins of his inspiration are diverse, from the personally to the politically charged, the hiatus is removed with the imposition of a mechanical process. It could be said that Klasmer has painted the same painting hundreds of times over a period of ten years.
In selecting particular paintings for exhibition or for individual collectors, Klasmer was ascribing individuality and character to his abstracts. This led him to experiment with roughly sketched faces as a basis for monochrome paintings which are then subjected to a mechanical process. However basic and pared down his sketch, the end result would always remind him or another viewer of a particular woman - her name then becoming the title of his accidental portrait.
His complete distance from the ultimate subject during the act of partially mechanised portraiture has moved Klasmer to present another remoteness prompted by his memories of the desert. Like the landscapes of Hollywood road movies, his deserts exude a sense of hope and longing. Klasmer’s early landscapes were of bereft cities and bloodstained land. This new collection of landscapes replaces machination with distance in time, space and memory. He finally abandons the machine for a subject which is in itself monochromatic, distant and empty, yet imbued with sacrifice, struggle and conflict. With these landscapes, his 30 year practice has almost come full circle.
In place of a conventional catalogue that would pre-empt this new work, Klasmer has invited Tony Godfrey, Andrew Renton, Jonathan Miles, Mark Rappolt to write about the aspects of painting that he finds most compelling: the portrait, the landscape, the monochrome and action or mechanical painting. This publication with an introduction by Itamar Levy will be available from 2nd October 2007.
Gabriel Klasmer was born in Jerusalem in 1950, studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, where he later became a lecturer. At the Royal College of Art in London he achieved his PhD and is now a senior tutor in the Department of Design Products. His exhibition history is extensive, representing Israel in numerous worldwide venues, including the 1996 Sao Paolo Biennial. From the overtly political early work shown in Israel, Germany and the USA, he is more recently known for his works that relate to the more formal questions of the status and making of paintings, interrogating painting as a process and painting as an end.
In selecting particular paintings for exhibition or for individual collectors, Klasmer was ascribing individuality and character to his abstracts. This led him to experiment with roughly sketched faces as a basis for monochrome paintings which are then subjected to a mechanical process. However basic and pared down his sketch, the end result would always remind him or another viewer of a particular woman - her name then becoming the title of his accidental portrait.
His complete distance from the ultimate subject during the act of partially mechanised portraiture has moved Klasmer to present another remoteness prompted by his memories of the desert. Like the landscapes of Hollywood road movies, his deserts exude a sense of hope and longing. Klasmer’s early landscapes were of bereft cities and bloodstained land. This new collection of landscapes replaces machination with distance in time, space and memory. He finally abandons the machine for a subject which is in itself monochromatic, distant and empty, yet imbued with sacrifice, struggle and conflict. With these landscapes, his 30 year practice has almost come full circle.
In place of a conventional catalogue that would pre-empt this new work, Klasmer has invited Tony Godfrey, Andrew Renton, Jonathan Miles, Mark Rappolt to write about the aspects of painting that he finds most compelling: the portrait, the landscape, the monochrome and action or mechanical painting. This publication with an introduction by Itamar Levy will be available from 2nd October 2007.
Gabriel Klasmer was born in Jerusalem in 1950, studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, where he later became a lecturer. At the Royal College of Art in London he achieved his PhD and is now a senior tutor in the Department of Design Products. His exhibition history is extensive, representing Israel in numerous worldwide venues, including the 1996 Sao Paolo Biennial. From the overtly political early work shown in Israel, Germany and the USA, he is more recently known for his works that relate to the more formal questions of the status and making of paintings, interrogating painting as a process and painting as an end.