Artist: Ariel Schlesinger
Venue: Dvir Gallery,
Date: October 26 – December 23, 2017
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Dvir Gallery
For his sixth solo show at Dvir Gallery and his first solo exhibition in Brussels, Ariel Schlesinger has created a new ensemble of installations, sculptures and collages. Within each piece lingers the evidence of a romance alongside a good amount of humor and a disregard for conventional definitions, boundaries, and borders
Ariel Schlesinger (b. 1980, Jerusalem) is based between Mexico City and Berlin. Through a poetic gesture, his work unfolds toward a post-minimal conceptual practice and DE-functionalizes everyday objects. Using the strategies of construction and deconstruction in many of his works, Schlesinger pushes and transforms the object, creating new possibilities of understanding
while also enabling surprising discoveries for the viewer within something that initially seemed utterly familiar. Departing from a background in “self-taught” engineering and with an energetic spirit, Schlesinger blurs the line between outsider inventor and studio-bound artist. The diverse and multilingual work points toward what is already gone, a new material existence, rescued from disappearance, generating a new presence through precise interventions.
His numerous projects using high voltage and flames explore risk and neuter a hazardous situation into one that is well controlled. Schlesinger’s fascination with fire as a material is visible in diverse pieces where he develops its use in order to create a unique signature.
His practice is a complex and imaginative tangle of personal history, philosophical and socio-political questions executed through precise craftsmanship, and miscellaneous inventions.
Schlesinger’s work has been featured in many gallery and museum exhibitions around the world. These include solo shows at Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros, Mexico, Kunsthaus Baselland, Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv/Brussels, Gallery Gregor Podnar, Berlin, Gallery Massimo Minini, Brecia, Gallery Yvon Lambert, Paris, amongst others. His diverse projects were also widely represented in group shows at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, US, SCAI The Bathhouse, Japan, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria, Center for Contemporary Art Warsaw, Poland, Museum Frieder Bruda, Germany and Bischoff Projects, Germany to name a view.
Ariel Schlesinger, 2017, exhibition view, Dvir Gallery Brussels
Ariel Schlesinger, 2017, exhibition view, Dvir Gallery Brussels
Ariel Schlesinger, 2017, exhibition view, Dvir Gallery Brussels
Ariel Schlesinger, After, All Red, 2017, (detail), red light bulbs, electric chord, sockets, high voltage transformer, variable dimension
Ariel Schlesinger, After, All Red, Red light bulbs, (installation view), electric chord, sockets, high voltage transformer, variable dimensions
Ariel Schlesinger, At Arm’s Lenght, 2017, bronze, lamp oil, cotton wick, 240 cm
Ariel Schlesinger, At Arm’s Lenght, 2017, (detail), bronze, lamp oil, cotton wick, 240 cm
Ariel Schlesinger, Objet Trouvé (glasses), 2017, found glasses in metal, brass plate, 11x5x12cm
Ariel Schlesinger, Untitled (burnt paper), 2017, archival print, Japanese paper, gesso, 80x106x7cm
Ariel Schlesinger, Untitled (Campfire), 2017, bronze, wood, 44x39x10cm