Ilan Averbuch

Ilan Averbuch
“Intimate Monuments”
October 30 - December 31, 2008
Reception for the Artist: Thursday, October 30, 6-8pm

New Location: 520 W 27th Street New York, New York 10001

The Loneliness of Queen Hatshepsut
2008, Wood, stone, steel, 10 x 12 x 4 feet

Ilan Averbuch’s “Intimate Monuments” is the inaugural exhibition at Nancy Hoffman Gallery’s new Chelsea location at 520 West 27th Street. The exhibition, which includes sculpture and drawing, opens on Thursday, October 30, 2008 and closes on Tuesday, December 31, 2008.

Under the Shadow of a Big Tree
2007, Mixed media on paper, 30 x 44 ¼

Babi Yar II
2006, Mixed media on paper, 11 x 17

To celebrate the opening of NHG’s new gallery, Averbuch created monumental works of wood, lead, steel, glass and stone that dialogue with the gallery’s 27-foot high ceiling, and shimmer under the natural light of clerestory windows. During the past three years while working on his pieces for this show, the artist also worked on several monumental public commission projects throughout this country and in Israel. Thus, the sculptures are infused with monumentality akin to public sculptures, which live between earth and sky, and transcend the issue of scale that must live within four walls. Titles like “Self Portrait,” “The Loneliness of Queen Hatshepsut” or “Diary,” suggest intimacy, though some of the works soar to thirteen feet in height. Smaller works in sculpture and drawing also investigate the quest for the monumental.

Being
2000-2008, Steel, stone, wood 71 x 68 x 68 inches

Two large works, “Being” (2000-2008) in which a steel airplane cockpit balances on a massive stone book and “The Loneliness of Queen Hatshepsut” (2008) in which a large wooden mast holds rows of boulder-scale pink granite stones strung on a lead wire like a necklace, are placed on large living room type wooden tables, referencing domestic space with an impact that can only be called monumental. Like most of Averbuch’s sculptures, these pieces present a visual dichotomy, a modernistic push/pull, an interest in issues universal and private.

Tumbleweed
2008 Stone, steel 66 x 112 x 184 inches

“Tumbleweed” is abstract and economical in material: it is made of stone fragments rising elegantly from the floor to a sharp central point in midair. A massive steel chain piercing the sculpture on one side, travels along the gallery floor, and ties the sculpture to the gallery wall, taking us from the height of abstraction to the physical space we occupy. In each sculpture a multi-layered experience faces the viewer: the physicality of the work, the immediacy of the materials and their connection to history, the relation-ship to human scale and to that which is outside human scale or the monumental.

Like an Open Book
2006, Mixed media on paper, 11 x 17 inches

Gateways and Towers
2006, Mixed media on paper, 11 x 17 inches

“Self Portrait” is the most ambitious of the artist’s works. A heroic lead picture frame 13x15 feet, stands freely on the gallery floor, somewhat tilted, as if sinking into it. Inside the frame is a powerful large tree form of steel and semi-opaque glass. The frame and the metaphoric tree are connected. In Hebrew (the language of Averbuch’s early years), “Ilan” means “tree.” “Diary,” a work measuring 10x13 feet (2008), is a drawing of a blackened tree which spreads through eight massive wood frames with heavy glass. Fragments of writing as background create the landscape in which the tree exists.

Self Portrait
2008, Steel, lead, glass, 13 x 15 x 11 feet

Self Portrait
2007, Steel, glass, lead, 38 x 46 x 35 inches

The gallery space extends past a large glass wall into a courtyard--a sculpture garden--surrounded by brick buildings. A grouping of Averbuch’s sculptures forms a procession under the urban sky: “The Dress, The Voice and The Bachelor’s Coat” parade majestically through the sculpture garden, a lyrical triumvirate.

The Dress, the Voice, and the Bachelor’s Coat
2005, Stone, steel, and wood, 8 x 22 x 8 feet

Averbuch has received many public and private commissions to create sculpture for the out-of-doors, among them: Valley Metro Rail, Phoenix, Arizona; the campus of the University of Connecticut at Storrs; Arena/Coliseum Complex in Portland, Oregon; HP Corporation in Yehud, Israel; Fire Station #2, Tierra Verde, Florida; and public space in Stapleton, Colorado. At present he is completing works for Sound Transit, Tacoma, Washington’s light rail, and for a new park in Leawood, Kansas. Public work calls for an examination of ideas, private and public, along with the particular demands of a specific site; the artist’s private mind enters into and dialogues with a public space. Ideas generated by Averbuch’s public commissions illuminate the stage for his works in this exhibition.

Babi Yar I
2006, Mixed media on paper, 11 x 17

Babi Yar III
2006, Mixed media on paper, 11 x 17

The artist received a B.F.A. from School of Visual Arts and an M.F.A. from Hunter College, both of New York. He also studied at Wimbledon School of Art, London. He received a grant from Pollock-Krasner Foundation and awards from Mid-Atlantic Art; D.A.A.D. (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst), Berlin; and Rhodes Family Award for Outstanding Achievement in Fine Art, School of Visual Arts, New York.

Avanim Vetseiadim
2007 Mixed media on paper 30 x 44 ¼

Ship of Fools
2007 Mixed media on paper 30 x 44 ¼

Ilan Averbuch’s work has been shown at the Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Art in the Park, New York; Bronfman Centre, Montreal; The Brooklyn Museum, New York; DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Garden, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Fort Tryon Park Project, New York; Het Apollohuis, The Netherlands; Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, New York; Hunter College, New York; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Jamaica Art Center, Queens, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; List Art Center, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; Lodz, Poland Historical Museum, Lodz, Poland; Palo Alto Cultural Center, California; P.S. 1, Long Island City, Queens, New York; Robert Moses Plaza, Fordham University at Lincoln Center, New York; Socrates Sculpture Park, Astoria, Queens, New York; Tefen Museum Sculpture Garden, Israel; Tel Aviv Museum, Israel; Tel Hai Art Center, Israel; Tel Noff Sculpture Garden, Israel.

Brooklyn
2007 Mixed media on paper 30 x 44 ¼

The artist’s work is represented in numerous public collections, among them: Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada; Bronfman Centre, Montreal, Canada; Florida International University, Miami; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Nevada Museum of Art, Reno; Omer Industrial Park, Israel; Open Museum, Tefen, Israel; Prudential Insurance Company of America; Newark, New Jersey; Runnymede Sculpture Farm, Woodside, California; Tel Aviv Museum, Israel; Tel Hai Art Center, Israel.

Brooklyn
2007, Wood, steel, mixed media, 24 x 62 x 40

Ilan Averbuch resides in New York City.

artist page | biography

For further information and/or photographs please call 212-966-6676 or e-mail Nancy Hoffman Gallery at info@nancyhoffmangallery.com. PLEASE NOTE: our new location in Chelsea is 520 West 27th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10-6pm