Elizabeth Xi Bauer Presents:
Choir
Abraham Kritzman & Daniel Silver
2nd February – 30th March 2024
Elizabeth Xi Bauer is thrilled to present Choir, a duo exhibition of works by Daniel Silver and Abraham Kritzman. This will be the first time that Silver’s work will be displayed at Elizabeth Xi Bauer Gallery, and the first time both artists exhibit together, evidencing mutual interests, themes, and use of materials in their respective practices.
Abraham Kritzman’s work is an ongoing investigation into notions of man-made – from paintings and sculptures to architecture and landscape. Kritzman’s multidisciplinary production is often influenced by mythical narratives and perennial imagery. His technique is analogous to a dance, where he moves back and forward, adds and removes: symbols, layers of paint and three-dimensional matter, thus creating meanings through paths that are seldom linear. For this upcoming exhibition, Kritzman will exhibit large paintings displayed within painted black box-like structures, creating a looming presence within the Gallery space. These will be accompanied by bronze reliefs which he created in the South London-based Foundry Make Touch, run by artist Katrin Hanusch. Each unique bronze sculpture is patinated by Kritzman and will be installed on the Gallery walls. Both these series delve into the language that the artist has developed over the years, influenced by his travels around the world as well as his personal experiences of everyday life.
Kritzman’s large-scale relief-like paintings bring together a menagerie of images, characters, and figures that merge in a thick layer of paint. To begin creating this body of work, he first adds a base colour as an underlayer. Copious amounts of oil paint are then applied on top of this underlayer, with the colour choice varying for each work. Layers are revealed underneath the wet paint as Kritzman oscillates through various thicknesses in a scoring process, producing intricate patterns and allowing larger areas to expose the underneath painting to a fuller extent. By the nature of paint drying, there is only a finite amount of time for the composition to be created before the window which enables the process begins to close.
Since his artistic debut in the late 1990s, Daniel Silver has shaped an artistic style that is distinctively recognisable as his own. Writer Gilda Williams described in a 2007 article for Art Forum, “Much of London-based sculptor Daniel Silver’s work occupies an in-between state — between complete and incomplete, between handmade and mass-produced, between artistic object and castoff”.
During a visit to the Italian marble quarry city of Carrara in 2007, Silver encountered discarded copies of Greco-Roman statuary, which he appropriated and carved into. These repurposed sculptures were then displayed on roughened wooden plinths, re-evaluating their worth, originality, and the transformation of an object from an artefact into an artwork. Silver continues to evolve his practice, exploring works on paper he participated in the 2019 Drawing Biennale in London. The latest chapter of his sculptural production incorporates the medium of clay. Recent works of unglazed clay painted over in oil paints have allowed him to further explore notions of psychoanalytic theory, human anatomy, and memory.
Such an amalgam of notions converges in a new series of semi-abstract ceramic busts, executed in 2022, that will be displayed in this exhibition. These are adorned with oil paint and bear titles that reference an orchestra: namely a conductor and a selection of choir members. As its signature of his recent sculptures, the plinths are individually customised by the artist, thus acting as colourful geometric underbodies to the busts. Also, on show will be three large works on paper from the Untitled series that Silver made in California’s Death Valley in 2021 – that is, at the height of the pandemic. They consist of variations of the same subject: colourful, gigantic human heads that are devoid of necks. Silver’s work blurs the boundary between reality and imagination, exploring the complexities of human relationships and forms.
Notes to Editors
Abraham Kritzman (born 1983, in Rehovot, Israel) lives and works between Israel and London.
Abraham Kritzman’s practice spans painting, printmaking, sculpture, and installation art. After studying at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, he completed his master’s degree in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2014. He lives between Israel and London and is currently a Tutor at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.
Kritzman is the recipient of several awards and scholarships and has exhibited throughout Europe and Israel. His artworks exist in major foundations and institutions such as the Clore Duffield Foundation, London, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel.
The artist has previously been awarded: The Minister of Culture Prize for Emerging Artists; The Hermann Struck Prize for Printmaking; the Clore-Bezalel Scholarship for MA at the Royal College of Art; The Aileen Cooper Prize; The Excellence Award for Achievements from Bezalel Department of Fine Art; and The History and Theory Excellence Award from Bezalel Academy.
In 2022, Abraham Kritzman’s Sheshet series of six sculptures were acquired by the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. Also in 2022, Kritzman’s work was the central part of two exhibitions curated by Àngels Miralda: Marine Lover: Wax and Water and Marine Lover: Snakes and Metal. Marine Lover: Wax and Water featured works by Abraham Kritzman and Violeta Paez Armando at Sally’s Fault, Amsterdam. Marine
Lover: Snakes and Metal, at Bradwolff Projects, Amsterdam, as well as Kritzman, included works by Marlene Dumas, Violeta Paez Armando, Ulay, and Müge Yilmaz.
Daniel Silver (born 1972, in London, UK) lives and works in London.
Born in 1972 in London and raised in Jerusalem, Daniel Silver is a British visual artist known for his sculptures and works on paper. He studied at the Slade School of Art, earning a BA in Fine Art in 1999, and later completed his MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London, in 2012. In 2002, he pursued further studies in sculpture at the British School in Rome, Italy.
Daniel Silver’s work is in the permanent collections of The Saatchi Gallery, London; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, USA; The Sender Collection, New York, USA; and Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Daniel Silver’s work has been exhibited across the UK and internationally, in both group and solo exhibitions. Silver’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE; Van Eyck Academy, Netherlands; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland.
In 2022, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, published Looking, a celebration of Daniel Silver’s work in clay, made between 2018 and 2022, for an exhibition at the space. His work was included in the Drawing Biennial 2019, Drawing Room, London.
Daniel Silver is a recipient of the Henry Moore Artist in Residency (2005). Other awards include the Rome Scholar in Fine Arts, The British School at Rome (2002); Credit Suisse First Boston Award, US (2001); and the Sharett Scholarship, America Israel Cultural Foundation, New York, US (2000).
Choir will run from 2nd February – 30th March 2024, open Wednesday through to Saturday, 12 – 6 pm or by appointment. A Private View will be held on 1st February 2024, 6 – 8 pm in the presence of the artists. Abraham Kritzman and Daniel Silver will be available for interviews.
