Reuven Israel: One Eye Shut

Nazarian / Curcio is pleased to present One Eye Shut, a solo exhibition of new wall and free-standing sculptures by New York-based artist Reuven Israel. This will be his fourth solo exhibition at the gallery.

Israel is known for his ongoing exploration of the physical and conceptual boundaries of sculpture and installation. His works are the result of painstaking craftsmanship, combining meticulous surfaces with illusionistic forms. This tension between the human-made and the industrial has become a hallmark of his practice. 

This exhibition unites two distinct yet related bodies of work, and its title, One Eye Shut, serves as a reference to the artist's newest wall-based works titled Aperture. These sculptures are built of multiple sections that expand and contract in the way that the lens of a camera opens and closes to capture light and thus the world around it. The forms contract into an hourglass shape and expand into a six-pointed star, with various configurations in between. Throughout the run of the exhibition, viewers will encounter these works in different positions, subtly shifting the presentation experience. 

In addition to the wall works, the exhibition will feature SSS’s and SOS’s, a series of stand-alone sculptures presented on pedestals. Composed of meticulously shaped segments of hardwood laminated with bronze, brass, or aluminum and joined with bolts that allow for each segment to hinge, these works are modular and reconfigurable, folding down to a compact form and expanding to multiple shapes. Once unfolded, they take on various references, resembling the body, dancing flames, or serpents, while also suggesting the letters S-O-S: Save Our Ship.

Since the mid-2000s, cultural references have informed the abstract nature of Israel’s sculptures. Recent series have been inspired by forms found in ancient and contemporary architecture, religious and spiritual iconography, science fiction, and various craft movements. The sculptures in One Eye Shut continue this modality, with works like Aperture shifting between references to sacred geometry and the Star of David. However, they also serve as a sober warning, a call of distress and attention. Whether in the ominous black shapes of Aperture or the SOS sculptures’ call for help, these works and their nearly monochromatic palettes of blacks and earth tones, are heavy with emotional weight. However, the fact that the sculptures are reconfigurable and thus resist a static position serves to illuminate that our world is in constant flux, always with the potential to evolve. As the sculptures physically morph, they both adopt and shed the various political, cultural and religious symbols from which they derive their form.

Israel draws on the rich legacy of minimalism and monumental sculpture, calling attention to form, surface, color, scale, and the viewer’s relationship to the object in space and time. While his sculptures might evoke certain symbols, forms, or references, Israel allows space for his objects to remain autonomous, mysterious, and self-referential.