Casterline │ Goodman Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Boaz Vaadia
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Tuesday, October 8, 2024


Casterline │ Goodman Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Boaz Vaadia
Boaz Vaadia (1951-2017), Deqer 2nd, 2005. Bronze, bluestone, and boulder, 13 x 21 x 21 ins. 33.02 x 53.34 x 53.34 cm.



ASPEN.- Boaz Vaadia is the internationally known sculptor whose timeless, evocative stone figures now inhabit museums, cultural sites, art galleries, and private collections. As major installations at prime buildings, parks, and homes around the world, they set a tone of peace and serenity.

Born and raised in Israel, Vaadia moved to New York City in 1975 thanks to a grant he received from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation. Vaadia established his studio in SoHo just before its streets labored to give birth to a new community of working artists. Roads were torn up and buildings were torn down. In the chaos of New York City, he discovered supplies from the earth. Slate and bluestone, ubiquitous materials of the city, are sedimentary rocks from glacial periods, millions of years old. The city's detritus: vestigial windowsills, shingles, and curb stones were all readily available to an artist, permitting the recycling of nature's resources to build, destruct, and reconstruct edifices of the future. Vaadia used these materials to make personal totems that evoked primal energies and ritual.

Starting in 1985, generic representations of man and woman emerged from Vaadia's earlier abstract, monumental effigies. Though generalized in form, there is some individuality in each figure, the artist's intention being to represent the essence of a specific person. "I love people. Each person is unique, as is the work of an artist. It is important that we, as artists, identify our own uniqueness, just as every individual needs to identify his/her own individuality." This individuality resides in centeredness, not in superficial attributes. It is that which unites us as human beings.




Vaadia hand carves slices of slate and bluestone, shaping them to be layers in a kind of topographical map. He stacks the horizontal slabs until the graded silhouette of a person, animal or group emerges. Sometimes he places a long single stone piece across a layer within juxtaposed figures to unite them. This subtle strategy suggests the merging and love shared between the figures. He views the geological layering of the stone as a natural model for his own sculptural process. It seems a logical metaphor for our human layering of experience and memory.

Vaadia's new work focuses on gigantic, layered stone heads, heads that develop from small studies of particular people. He selects all the sitters, beginning with his own children, Sara and Rebecca, and then seeks other unique heads among people with whom he works and sees on the street. Vaadia takes photos to formalize a first impression, and then sculpts a likeness in oil-based clay, adding grooves to simulate stone layers. The subsequent plaster cast begins to dissolve details, focusing instead on mass, volume and body language, qualities that are characteristic of the sitter. Details are blurred, made more generic in the handling of the stone layers. Vaadia listens to viewers' impressions, enjoying their process of filling in the details and projecting their own interpretation onto the work.

In recent years, Vaadia has been making bronze castings of many of the large "outdoor" pieces as well as the variously scaled studies. Vaadia is keeping a collection of castings, one from each edition, and a few of the original stone works, for loan to public museums and for exhibitions that travel. In the spring of 2005, two large pieces will be on loan for two years to the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

His work is included in selected collections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY-Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA- Hakone Open Air Museum, Japan-Norton Gallery of Art, W. Palm Beach, Florida- Tel-Aviv Museum, Israel- Jewish Museum, New York, NY- The Israel Museum, Israel- Mazda Great Lakes, MI- Elton John, Atlanta, Georgia- Martin Z. Margulies, FL and The Related Companies, Carnegie Park Building, NY.

Related categories: Stone, Carving, Brooklyn Artists, Israel, Contemporary Art, New York Artists, 20th Century Art, Focus on Materials, Outdoor Art, Striped, Sculpture, Leisure, The Environment, Group Portrait, Related to Religion, Individual Portrait, Bronze, Face, United States, Human Figure, Metal, Animals, Work on Paper










Today's News

August 14, 2022

After Basquiat raid, Orlando Museum faces crisis of credibility

Berggruen Gallery opens an exhibition of recent paintings by California artist Clare Kirkconnell

Pace Gallery opens a solo exhibition of new and recent work by Kiki Smith at its East Hampton gallery

Getty to return three major sculptures to Italy

Kehrer Verlag publishes 'Oliver Jordan Portraits Band / Volume II'

Casa da Cultura de Comporta presents "I Could Eat You"

White Cube presents an exhibition of recent paintings and drawings by German artist Georg Baselitz

Casterline │ Goodman Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Boaz Vaadia

Tim Ferguson Sauder's Americans Flags on view Cape Ann Museum

Gerald Peters Contemporary opens an exhibition of works by Patrick Dean Hubbell

Passages Insolites: A public art circuit in Quebec City

Museum service unveils fresh look and name to celebrate inspiring culture and art across the city

Bill Pitman, revered studio guitarist, is dead at 102

Ukrainian Children bring a play from a bomb shelter to Brooklyn

Martos After Dark resents 'Night Fever, One Halo' by Arthur Simms

Too darn hot: How summer stages are threatened by climate change

Overlooked no more: Alda Merini, a poet of mental illness

Summer-fall exhibitions at the University Art Museum presents works by Sara Magenheimer and Chryssa

Monumental watercolours go on display at unique Lake District museum

Anna Laudel Bodrum presents Ardan Özmenoğlu’s solo exhibition 'Bodrumania'

Review: In a rueful 'Night Music,' the clowns are finally here

Gallery EXIT extends LI Ning's 'Welcome Jon Looka' exhibition until 27 August

Around the World in 80 Days 150th Anniversary Coin

How to Become an Airbnb Superhost

Sacred Art: Everything about sacred art unfiltered




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful