News and Reviews December 2010

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for the New Year!

The gallery will be open by appointment only through January 8. Please call 614-291-2555 or email gallery@rebeccaibel.com to schedule a visit. Thank you.



Ori Gersht - current exhibition in the Short North Gallery on view through January 8.

We are thrilled to announce that the Columbus Museum of Art has acquired a work by Ori Gersht 'Drown' from the series 'Falling Bird'.

Our exhibition is well received with a review in Sunday's Columbus Dispatch.
Review in the Columbus Dispatch - click here









Heimir Björgúlfsson is included in an exhibition at the Reykjavik Art Museum:

"New Acquisitions 2006 – 2010"
Reykjavik Art Museum - Kjarvalsstadir, Reykjavik, Iceland

November 20, 2010 - January 23, 2011










We are also excited to announce that the Columbus Museum of Art has also acquired works by Laura Sanders and Michael Reafsnyder.

Laura Sanders
Girls and Plastic Floating
2010 Oil on canvas
41 x 65 inches






Michael Reafsnyder
Yummy
2007 Acrylic on linen
30 x 30 inches

Ori Gersht - Infinitely Divisible

Gallery Associate John Campbell-Orde contributes some insight into the broad issues in our current show. Here are his reflections on the works by Ori Gersht:

Ori Gersht's work has been described as capturing the 'optical unconsciousness,' or the infinite changes that exist in between what the brain and naked eye register with human consciousness. Gersht employs cutting-edge photographic technology to accomplish the eternal desire to suspend time. Rendering time plastic, Gersht creates ethereal works, pregnant with narrative. The photographs in the current exhibition come from his Falling Bird series and Pomegranate series, and play on the classical still life painting. As with other photographs from these series and his photographs from earlier series, those in the upcoming exhibition elicit dialogue between the temporal and the physical, with time the invisible hand imbuing the physical with import. Gersht’s photographs both compresses and expand time. In contrast to still life paintings, his scenes are captured quickly through photography. Time is thereby compressed when compared to the classical still life painting, which seems to depict one moment even though significant time would have elapsed during the painting process and changes to the scene would therefore have occurred. Gersht also expands time by dissecting it. Each photograph represents an exact moment in time. As his photographs implicitly recognize, though, time is subject to infinite dissection. While his photographic process reveals fleeting realities that otherwise would elude human consciousness, since time can never be broken down completely it will always to obscure as well as reveal. Like Russian dolls, within every moment lies another.

Lush and painterly in feel, the photographs in the upcoming exhibition depict objects typical from still life paintings, such as fruit, sliced open to reveal latent life, or recently hunted game patiently awaiting its dressing. As the classical still life painters suspended time and refocused our eyes through the meditative stillness in their scenes, Gersht uses photographic technology to dissect time by the millisecond. Time is both implicit subject matter and the brush Gersht uses. Each temporal fragment and accompanying physical permutation is captured through high speed photography. In one large photograph in the upcoming exhibition a duck hangs suspended by twine above water, a brightly colored orange resting nearby. Subsequent photographs in the Falling Bird series show the duck descending and slowly being enveloped by the water, with jewel-like droplets suspended in the air around its neck. In another photograph in the upcoming exhibition we see pooled water with carefully arranged grapes resting on an adjacent ledge. Closer inspection reveals that the wall behind has been splashed with the water, an implicit event that the photograph does not reveal. In the photograph from the Pomegranate series, which is based on a 17th Century still life and Degerton's famous photograph of a bullet that has just burst through an apple and emerged on the other side. In the pomegranate photograph from the upcoming exhibition, a pomegranate suspended by string has just been exploded by a bullet. Nearby are vegetables and sliced-open fruit peacefully resting. Other photographs from the Pomengranate series show the pomengrante further expanding and tearing open from the violent shock.

Holiday 2010 - Exhibition in Miranova

Holiday 2010

On view in the Rebecca Ibel Gallery @ Miranova

2 Miranova Place, Suite 150, Columbus OH 43215

Exhibition open December 1 – 30

Opening Reception: Friday, December 3, 6-8 pm

Sarah Fairchild Cabbage and Crabgrass, 2010 Acrylic and flocking on paper, 52 x 72”

The Rebecca Ibel Gallery is pleased to present Holiday 2010, a group exhibition featuring new works by Laura Bidwa, Tom Chapin, Sarah Fairchild, Linda Gall, Robert Harms, Laura Sanders and Billy Sullivan.

Laura Bidwa is represented with a group of 3 recent works on panel with colored pencil landscape drawing and painting, which are faint and obscured. One must focus in and allow these quiet and elegant paintings to reveal themselves.

Tom Chapin participates with a work in Mahogany. His Microcosm is a wonderful example of the artists wood carving technical deftness. The form exudes life and visually defies the weight of the material.

New to the gallery, Columbus artist Sarah Fairchild participates with the painting Crabgrass. This large work of acrylic on paper depicts the natural world in a sharply defined, graphic style that is reminiscent of the famous wallpaper designs produced by Victorian artist William Morris, yet infused with intense iridescent color.

Linda Gall is included with a recent still life ‘Dead Flowers #3’. This study exemplifies the artists skill in watercolor and her quirky sensibility.

Known for the ‘rustic lyricism’ emerging in his recent paintings, Robert Harms draws inspiration from the changing seasons and explores the continuum between art and nature. In ‘August’, the New York artist abstractly depicts the convergence of change and color outside his woodland studio in Southampton.

Laura Sanders Reflective Pond, 2010 Oil on canvas 48 x 79 inches

Columbus artist Laura Sanders has garnered attention with her paintings of children playing in and enveloped by water, through which she explores this mysteriously elemental but potentially threatening interaction. While her paintings are nearly photorealistic on first glance, closer inspection reveals fluid, nearly abstract brush strokes that wed form with content. In ‘Reflective Pond’ Sanders depicts a boy and young man in the layered, shimmering water of a lake, their shoulders rising just above its surface.

Billy Sullivan Stephen, 2010 Pastel on paper 40 x 32 inches

Known for his elegantly intimate portraits of artists and friends who inhabit the art scene, New York artist Billy Sullivan is included with a recent pastel of artist Stephen Mueller. This large pastel portrait is derived from a photograph taken in the 1970’s of fellow artist and long-time friend Stephen Mueller. Stylishly bundled against the cool weather, the subject gazes meditatively into the distance.

Ori Gersht - Opening in December

Ori Gersht: Selected Works

On view in the Rebecca Ibel Gallery in the Short North

1055 North High Street, Columbus OH 43201

Exhibition open: December 1 – January 8

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 4, 6-8 pm

Ori Gersht Of Balance, 2009 LVT print mounted on aluminum, numbered 2/6, framed 14 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches

The Rebecca Ibel Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs from the internationally acclaimed Israeli artist Ori Gersht. Based in London, Gersht has been an important voice in contemporary art for more than a decade.

The exhibition features still life works from the Falling Bird, Pomegranate, and Time after Time: Exploding Flowers series. The artist plays with the classic still life and literally breaks it apart. Lush and painterly in feel, the photographs in the upcoming exhibition are inspired by Old Master paintings, from the 18^th C French painter Chardin to the 17^th C Spanish artist Juan Sanches Cotan, to Dutch and French still life painting traditions. The artist restages these scenes and then uses high-tech devices to add his own twist to the narrative.

Ori Gersht Untitled 3, 2007 c-print mounted on aluminum, numbered 2/6, framed 17 7/8 x 13 3/4 inches

As is most of his works, the artist investigates the connecting notions of beauty and death. As the traditional still life is meant to be a reflection of human frailty and the passage of time. Gersht pushes the limits of photography and film to underscore ideas of time and the visual experience. His work has been described as capturing the 'optical unconsciousness,' or the infinite changes that exist in between what the brain and naked eye register with human consciousness. Gersht employs cutting-edge photographic technology to accomplish the eternal desire to suspend time. Rendering time plastic, Gersht creates ethereal works, pregnant with narrative.

Gersht’s photographs both compresses and expand time. In contrast to still life paintings, his scenes are captured quickly through photography. Time is thereby compressed when compared to the classical still life painting, which seems to depict one moment even though significant time would have elapsed during the painting process and changes to the scene would therefore have occurred. Gersht also expands time by dissecting it. Each photograph represents an exact moment in time. As his photographs implicitly recognize, though, time is subject to infinite dissection. While his photographic process reveals fleeting realities that otherwise would elude human consciousness, since time can never be broken down completely it will always to obscure as well as reveal. Like Russian dolls, within every moment lies another.

Ori Gersht Imbalances, 2008 Lambda print mounted on aluminum, numbered 1/6, 47 1/4 x 59 inches

Originally from Tel Aviv, Gersht currently lives and works in London. He received his BA from the University of Westminister and his MFA from the Royal College of Art, both in London. Over the past 20 years, his works have been widely exhibited internationally and are included in numerous museum collections including: The Tate, SF Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Artist News - November 12, 2010

Tom Chapin - installation shot and new photo of Chain and Growth Cage.
The exhibition is open through November - don't miss it!






















Billy Sullivan has a show up in Detroit at the Susanne Hilberry Gallery. Beautiful paintings and drawings, check it out at http://www.susannehilberrygallery.com/































Almond Zigmund is in a show at BoxoFFICE:

Crafting Concept: Oppositions, Connections and the Nature of Form
October 2 - November 20, 2010

Zigmund created a bold installation for the exhibition, as well as a limited set of wall works. Her works are boldly colored, highly patterned interventions using industrial materials.

Almond Zigmund was born in California, raised in Brooklyn, and now lives in East Hampton, NY. She received an undergraduate degree from Parsons School of Design in NY and Paris and an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Almond has exhibited her work for over 15 years in galleries across the US and in Europe and has created site-specific installations for The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY and The Las Vegas Art Museum. Almond makes installations, sculpture and related images that examine perceptions of space. "My work is a series of reactions to space, a mark-making which interjects a counter rhythm to existing structures. This reappraisal of one's place within a space is meant to call into question existing parameters and boundaries and forces us to experience the physical and psychological and our place in it, anew."

Matt Magee is getting great press for his Knoedler show.
Roberta Smith in the NY Times, Friday, November 12, 2010:

Tom Chapin - new sculpture / Artist News

Tom Chapin: new sculpture

Opening this Friday, November 5, 6-8 pm in the Short North gallery, an exhibition of new sculpture by Tom Chapin. The show will be open through the month of November.

The artist is known for his modest scales works in a variety of materials, from granite to bronze to marble, and in this show the focus is on a small selection of works in mahogany and rosewood. Chapin’s inspiration comes from diverse sources including the natural world, ancient philosophies and the human condition. While his work is not representational, it is not all together abstract either. Working in an intuitive manner, the artist creates forms, which describe experiences or basic elemental truths as he sees them. There is an energy and action evident in this group, suggesting perhaps genetic or biological growth or atomic reaction.


Born in Buffalo, New York, Tom Chapin became curious at the age of 19 and traveled around North and Central America. After a period of exploring architecture and carpentry, he turned to sculpture, where he has kept his focus for the past 25 years. His work has been exhibited in the US and abroad. He is the recipient of a Pollack-Krasner grant and the London Chelsea Art Council’s Portobello Prize. This is his second exhibition with the Rebecca Ibel Gallery.

for more images and information visit our website - rebeccaibel.com.

Press Preview for the exhibition can be found in this weeks Columbus Alive - click here.

Congratulations to Melissa Meyer who has been honored as one of 18 newly elected members into the The National Academy Museum and School. In the 185-year old institution, academicians are elected by peer artists and architects who are members of the Academy. The 2010 new members are: Janine Antoni, Adam Anuszkiewicz, Willard Boepple, Donna Dennis, Carroll Dunham, Garth Evans, Nancy Friese, Ann Gale, Ann Hamilton, Glenn Ligon, Melissa Meyer, Dana Schutz, Shahzia Sikander, Amy Sillman, Lee Tribe, Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, and Don Voisine.

Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale University School of Art, was Honorary Master of Ceremonies of the induction ceremony, which was held on October 13, 2010.

Wexner Center turns 21!
http://www.wexarts.org/about/wex21/
They are celebrating with a big opening celebration on Saturday, November 6 and a host of events and exhibitions.

Report from Bogota

I am happy to report that ArtBo, an international art fair in Bogota, Columbia was a great adventure and success. The fair itself was fairly small and offered high quality works by mostly Latin American galleries and artists. (photos of the entrance of the fair during set up; pictures of my booth; MagnanMetz Gallery with an installation of Alejandro Almanza Pereda and Horrach Moya gallerist with a Jorge Mayet sculpture.)

















The organizers of the fair were tremendous hosts and the art community came together and welcomed us with open arms. Everyday was full of visiting private collections, touring the city's museums and cultural centers, along with dinners and parties in the most fun and dynamic places. A particularly fun evening was dinner and dancing at Andres Carne de rez in Chio, which was crazy fun entertainment, dancing and delicious food. (photo of my trusted assistant Camilla on the balcony of a collector's home; dancing at Andres Carne)


The art scene is also very strong. There is a large group of fantastic young artists, some favorites include Milar Lagos, Esteban Pena, Sair Garcia. Along with the Columbians were great Mexican and Argentinian artists Alejandro Almanza Pereda and Luis Teran who were there for the fair.

Overall, I hope to go back next year and recommend it to anyone to join me.

(Security is fine if one plays by the rules and pays attention, no worries.)