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ILAN AVERBUCH
He received a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York and an M.F.A. from Hunter College, New York. He lives and works in New York.
Since the early 1980's his work has been exhibited regularly in the United States, Europe, Israel, India and Canada.
Ilan Averbuch, SKIRTS AND PANTS
(AFTER DUCHAMP), 1998,
mixed media on paper, 30 x 44 inches
Ilan Averbuch, COLOGNE INSTALLATION, 1999,
mixed media on paper, 30 x 44 inches
In a catalogue essay for his retrospective show at the Open Museum in Tefen, Israel, in June 1997, the art critic Carter Ratcliff wrote "in part his sculptures owe their monumental aura to their materials--stone, copper, lead, heavy wooden beams. In greater part, this aura is created by his themes--civilization and its history, its interactions with nature. Yet the deepest power of Averbuch's art is it's truly convincing monumentality, the product of qualities that we ordinarily consider anti-monumental. A monument of the usual sort has a single message, simply stated. Sculpture of this sort presents its single-mindedness as a claim to authority. The authority of an Averbuch monument is quite different, for it flows from a refusal to advance just one idea. As we have seen, his images not only permit, they demand, multiple readings. He is a master of ambiguity, of the richness of meaning that engages the imagination and prompts it to follow cues in every direction, as far as our energies will take us. Always subtle, he is often playful, and his art never permits us to be certain even about such seemingly simple matters as formal resemblance."
Ilan Averbuch, JERUSALEM, 1998, copper, 36 x 126 x 80 inches
On a smaller scale Averbuch has made three stone tables, each consisting of a slab of granite on wooden legs. The stones are carved and hollowed and poetically evoke a sense of place or three metaphoric stages in the human condition.
Ilan Averbuch, TRILOGY PART ONE, IN THE GARDEN OF EARLY STEPS, 1999,
stone and wood, 28 x 60 x 26 inches
Ilan Averbuch, TRILOGY PART TWO, THE ISOLATION OF TWO TREES, 1999,
stone and wood, 28 x 62 x 30 inches
Ilan Averbuch, TRILOGY PART THREE, THREE MOUNTAINS, 1999,
stone and wood, 29 x 52 x 37 inches
Ilan Averbuch, THREE LILIES, 1991, stone and water, 36 x 70 x 50 inches
