Absalon (artist)
Absalon ( Hebrew אבשלום, * As Meir Eshel in Hebrew מאיר אשל, 26. December 1964 in Ashdod , Israel ; † October 10, 1993 in Paris ) was an Israeli installation artist , video artist and sculptor .
life and work
After serving in the Israel Defense Forces , the artist lived in a hut on the beach and sold jewelry he had made himself in order to earn a ticket to Paris . In 1987 he moved to Paris and took the stage name Absalon . He was introduced to the art scene through his uncle Jaques Ohayon. He got to know Annette Messager and Christian Boltanski , with whom he became friends. At the same time he began to deal with minimalist living room designs.
In 1992 he designed for himself - instead of a residential building - ascetic living cells, the Cellules , which he had installed in the cities of Paris, Zurich, New York, Tel Aviv, Frankfurt am Main and Tokyo so that he could alternately inhabit them himself. He lived a life of asceticism , which is reflected in his work. Absalon produced, among other things, objects, spatial objects, drawings, objects made of plaster and architectural miniatures. There are echoes of the avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s and De Stijl in his work .
The retrospective shown in 2010 at the Kunst-Werken Berlin (KW Institute for Contemporary Art) is considered to be the most complete exhibition of his work to date.
Solo exhibitions
- 1990 Propositions d'habitations , The Jerusalem Foundation , Jerusalem / Cellules, Galerie Crousel-Robelin / Bama, Paris
- 1991 Compartiments , Künstlerhaus Stuttgart
- 1993 Cellules , Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris - ARC, Paris; Luis Campana Gallery, Cologne
- 1994 Carré d'Art , Musée d'art contemporain, Nîmes, France; Art Association Hamburg
- 2010 Kunst-Werke Berlin (KW Institute for Contemporary Art), Berlin
Group exhibitions
- 1989 Pas à coté, pas n'importe où - 4 , Villa Arson , Nice, France
- 1990 Lignes de mire , Cartier Foundation, Jouy-en-Josas, France
- 1991 Mouvements 2 , Musée National d'Art Moderne, Center Georges Pompidou , Paris
- 1992 DOCUMENTA IX , Kassel "The Six Cells", Attitudes, Geneva: "Fabrice Gygi et Absalon", 3rd Istanbul International Biennale, Istanbul
- 1994 Même si c'est la nuit , CAPC, Musée d'Art Contemporain, Bordeaux / Hors limites, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Center Georges Pompidou, Paris
- 1997 Kunsthalle Zurich , Switzerland
- 1998 Premises: “ Invested Spaces in Visual Arts, Architects, and Design from France, 1958-1998 ”, Guggenheim Museum , New York
- 2000 “ Everything begins in Merz ”, Sprengel Museum , Hanover
Web links
- Literature by and about Absalon in the catalog of the German National Library
- Materials by and about Absalon (artist) in the documenta archive
- Carsten Probst: The Berlin works of art show the Israeli artist Absalon , at: website d-radio
- Examples of his work
Individual evidence
- ↑ Niklas Maak : How living is born , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 9, 2010, p. 31
- ↑ La collection. Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Sous la direction de Suzanne Pagé . Paris Musées, Paris 2009, ISBN 978-2-87900-888-2 , pp. 53-54.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Absalon |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Eshel, Meir (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli installation artist, video artist and sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 26, 1964 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ashdod |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 10, 1993 |
| Place of death | Paris |