Amikam Toren
Stacks (Six Only)
1992-1995
Cardboard, Variable dimensions
Courtesy of the gallery.

Of the Times – Thursday November 3rd 1988
Pulped newspaper and PVA on canvas, paper and card
92.5 x 86.6 inches
1988.
Courtesy of the gallery.

Opening tonight, November 22nd at Jessica Silverman Gallery’s new location (488 Ellis Street, San Francisco) is “Of the Times and Other Historic Works,” an exhibition of historic work by Amikam Toren. Amikam Toren is an innovative conceptual artist whose practice incorporates the destruction of ready-made objects that are then resurrected in his own paintings and sculptures. Toren’s thirty-five-year oeuvre is in a rigorous and witty dialogue with a compelling range of international art movements, such as Arte Povera, Gutai, Minimalism, and Pop. Born in Israel and based in London, the 68-year-old artist has exhibited widely in Europe but, remarkably, this is his first solo show in America.

“Of the Times” is a series of large-scale paintings created between 1983 and 1993 that depict monumental, sometimes indiscernible letters, made from pigment derived from pulped editions of “The [London] Times”. The masthead of each obliterated newspaper is displayed beside the canvas that displays its remains. These “labels” draw attention to the disparate realities of disposable daily papers versus timeless paintings and to the way the artist has distilled hundreds of column inches of text into a single consonant or vowel. Open to myriad interpretations, Toren’s “Of the Times” works suggest an ironic search for the ineffable, fundamental ur-language of painting.

Opening Reception: November 22nd, 2013. 6-8pm.

“Of the Times and Other Historic Works,” is on view through January 19th, 2014.

For more information visit Jessica Silverman Gallery and her  new location at 488 Ellis Street, San Francisco.