His works riff on being. Using simple reoccurring components, his works assemble the actors, the audience, the narrative, the lenses, and above all, the fundamental principles inherent to the chosen story.
Rabinowitch has said that his drawings and sculptural works are "a kind of choreography for the eyes and the body respectively." And the mind.
His reputation as one of the most important sculptors of our time spread internationally from Canada in the 1960s. Cambridge University appointed him as a Life Member, Clare Hall in 1986, the only artist so appointed.
Major private and public collections worldwide including Canada's National Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Montréal's Musée des beaux-arts, and New York's Guggenheim acquire his steel sculptures and his drawings. Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum hold more major works by him than by any other artist. Recently Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie acquired 5 of his foundation works. MARTa Herford, Germany acquired 4 more recent works including the iconic Open Ice (for Wayne Gretzky) 1991.
At the G20 Rabinowitch Makes Visible The Ambiguous, Opaque, and Contradictory
G20 - Meeting of the Heads of Government Toronto, Canada June 2010
The nature of international politics, playing to diverse audiences, often requires and delivers ambiguity and opacity in the guise of clarity.
Ironically, at the site of the Toronto G20 meeting is Rabinowitch's large steel sculpture, Éloges de Fontelle, makes visible ambiguity, opacity and the contradictory. It can be seen as two gloved hands protruding from the sidewalk, palms pointing in opposite directions. On the one hand... on the other hand....
Dusk Photo: BMXer Mike, directly experiencing ambiguity ....
City of Toronto Brochure For Éloges de Fontenelle
Royden Rabinowitch, 1984
The abstract and complex works of Royden Rabinowitch often refer to the ambiguous and uncertain principles underlying our existence. In the case of Éloges de Fontenelle, there exists in the two components a contrast of concave and convex forms -positive and negative elements - that defy the linear grid of the urban design, interrupting the expected flow of the streetscape, literally and metaphorically. Located on a very busy sidewalk at the north entrance to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, physical negotiation of the work is a task that not each person will necessarily approach in the same manner. Represented here are a multiplicity of viewpoints and perspectives that challenge notions of absolute direction, purpose or truth.
The title of the work refers to the 17th century French poet and philosopher Bernard Le Bouvier de Fontenelle whose writings addressed notions of truth and ambiguity in the emerging scientific knowledge of his time.Waterloo Bell – Bell for Kepler
Rabinowitch’s 2008 large outdoor, steel work Waterloo Bell – Bell for Kepler is installed in the Waterloo, Ontario, Civic Square. Previously it was on a 5 month temporary loan to the Institute of Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. The sculpture’s 3 stacked, major segments simultaneously appear to float and be at risk of falling down. They resemble someone attempting to stay in balance. The Kitchener-Waterloo region, Ontario, Canada has been and is able to balance faith and analysis. It was founded by major faith communities. Additionally, Waterloo has become one of the major centres of theoretical and applied physics in the world.
Mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler is therefore a perfect exemplar of such balance. Unlike the so called heretical scientists of his age, Kepler was able to successfully balance his Lutheran faith with his analysis.
Lecture At The Institute for Quantum Computing, Waterloo
Published Rabinowitch Text Now Available
Lecture: Science and Art: “Humanity’s Crisis of Being, Generated by the Scientific Revolution”
Sculptor Royden Rabinowitch described the emotional, historical, artistic and philosophical considerations of the conflicts between the direct physical and aesthetic experience and that of the scientific definition of the world. These conflicts have been the dominant basis of his body of work.
Oil spills, capital market melt downs, technology advancement driven pollution and disease, and labour saving technologies that require us to work harder, faster, longer are all facets of this issue.
MARTa Herford, Germany
MARTa poster featuring Open Ice – For Wayne Gretzky
The MARTa Herford exhibition took a fresh critical look at Rabinowitch’s foundation works. The two essays in the catalogue take different approaches to the works which, taken together, illustrate why Rabinowitch is actually a modern romantic artist, not a minimalist, and why his works remain relevant to both life and intellectual debate.
Rabinowitch’s essay describes his works as emanating from man’s central dilemma, the “crisis of being”, a never ending series of turning-points. Since they are human turning-points, his works are by turn anguished, comedic, dispassionately descriptive, analytical, cautionary and hopeful.
In his essay A clownesque incorporation of the external viewpoint, curator Thomas Niemeyer, rather than interpret the works, chooses to examine Rabinowitch’s use of forms through works in the exhibition dedicated to the most famous comics in cinematic history. Through these works he describes Rabinowitch’s visual or aesthetic presentation of man in the modern age in ways that parallel the actual space in which the works of art are perceived.
