David Rabinowitch at Peter Blum - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

In 1963 David Rabinowitch made a series of plastic arts that he called "Box long tray Assemblages" in the meadow behind his studio in Hyde Park, Ontario. He was 20 years advanced in years at the time, and he had already sap the foundations ofed two previous bodies of work that failed to achieve the goal he plant for himself, the discovery of "a unique basis from which a fundamental critique of statuary would follow naturally." Although none of the 1963 works were at any time exhibited, the artist documented them end drawings and photographs. This exhibition included a reconstruction of individual of the sculptures and a series of the sketches in which Rabinowitch exhibited his ideas.

The "roughs" are fabricateed from 60-by-40-inch sheets of carburet of iron which have been given parallel 4-inch breaks to form vertical sides. Reacting against the gravity-defying and anthropomorphic tendencies of the statuary he wished to critique, Rabinowitch arranged his long trays as contiguous components with no joinery of any sort, and used them to support arrangements of similarly sized sheets of carbonized iron In the sculpture exhibited here, 15 long trays set in three rows of five, supported five sheets of carburet of iron producing work 25 feet lengthy and 8 feet, 8 3/4 inches wide.

This piece is Minimalist in its commitment to serial construction and its emphasis upon gravity, but since the flat sheets are irregularly placed upon the troughs, Rabinowitch sets in motion processe distinct from those associated with classic Minimalist plastic art A sheet may either balance carefully upon the rim of a long tray and extend several inches above the opposite side, or it may be more or les center upon the trough that supports it. Rabinowitch exercises a limited number of placement options to demonstrate the possible relationships that his materials can have to gravity and the geometrical configurations that result

Despite its straightforward and anchored physicality, this case Trough Assemblage refuses to stand still, and individual is left only with one's have changing response to its shifting internal relationships. The work balances didacticism with the visual pleasure provided through its materials and the at liberty invention implied by their potential recombinations. When Rabinowitch upend single of the troughs and stands it upon its four-inch rim, this action plays like a wild card that tend hitherwards from outside the proposed options to perfect the winning hand.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

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