Izhar Patkin
Internationally celebrated, Israel-born artist Izhar Patkin has lived in the United States since 1977, first coming to prominence in the mid-1980s with his iconic Black Paintings, an inventive visual adaptation of Jean Genet's play The Blacks: A Clown Show. As a painter and sculptor, Patkin works in a narrative form, often drawing upon historical and cultural material to make complex visual metaphors. He imaginatively uses materials to achieve novel effects. For an exhibition in 1994 at Holly Solomon Gallery in New York City, Patkin included a 14-foot high sculpture of the Hindu god Shiva made from colored glass as well as six paintings depicting man’s expulsion from the primal garden. In his works on paper exploring the history of the Mendelssohn family, a Jewish family in Berlin around 1769 well-known for their cultural and artistic contributions, Patkin developed a trademark technique of stenciling, cutting, weaving, folding, and bending the paper.
Patkin's major mid-career museum survey "The Wandering Veil," was shown at MASS MoCA in North Adams, the Tel Aviv Museum, and The Open Museum in Tefen, Ireland. His work has been included in exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, The Stedelijk Museum, MoMA PS1, Kustverein Stuttgart, among others. His work was …
Internationally celebrated, Israel-born artist Izhar Patkin has lived in the United States since 1977, first coming to prominence in the mid-1980s with his iconic Black Paintings, an inventive visual adaptation of Jean Genet's play The Blacks: A Clown Show. As a painter and sculptor, Patkin works in a narrative form, often drawing upon historical and cultural material to make complex visual metaphors. He imaginatively uses materials to achieve novel effects. For an exhibition in 1994 at Holly Solomon Gallery in New York City, Patkin included a 14-foot high sculpture of the Hindu god Shiva made from colored glass as well as six paintings depicting man’s expulsion from the primal garden. In his works on paper exploring the history of the Mendelssohn family, a Jewish family in Berlin around 1769 well-known for their cultural and artistic contributions, Patkin developed a trademark technique of stenciling, cutting, weaving, folding, and bending the paper.
Patkin's major mid-career museum survey "The Wandering Veil," was shown at MASS MoCA in North Adams, the Tel Aviv Museum, and The Open Museum in Tefen, Ireland. His work has been included in exhibitions at Centre Pompidou, The Stedelijk Museum, MoMA PS1, Kustverein Stuttgart, among others. His work was also featured in the 1990 Venice Biennale and the 1987 Whitney Biennial.
Courtesy of the Jewish Museum
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
Honolulu Contemporary Museum, HI
Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel
