David Rabinowitch

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David Rabinowitch

The Canadian artist David Rabinowitch, born in Toronto in 1943, studied art at the University of Western Ontario and the Ontario College of Art. He is an important representative of Minimal Art. Thus, for Rabinowitch, the idea of the artwork has priority over its actual execution. The artist develops plans for his works, but if one of his works is to be realised, the buyer or an institution must see to it. His heavy steel works, which can weigh several tonnes, have to be made by industrial companies anyway.

Rabinowitch’s works can be roughly divided into two groups: the drawings and works on paper on the one hand and the steel works on the other. Rabinowitch, who dealt intensively with philosophical writings and positions from an early age, observes his environment with an analytical eye. From what he perceives, he extracts models, patterns and underlying constructions, which he records in drawings and incorporates in his works. His parents – both architects – certainly played their part in his fondness for plans and sketches. Rabinowitch’s works mean nothing. Their content is fed by the relationships of their various parameters to each other: the dimensions and geometric form of the individual elements, the edge lengths and their angles to each other, the mass of the individual parts, the arrangement of the drilled holes on the steel parts, and so on. This is also reflected in the titles of the works, for example Metrical (Romanesque) Constructions in 17 Masses and 3 Scales.

On the occasion of David Rabinowitch’s 80th birthday, the gallerist and art historian Dr Dorothea van der Koelen, who has worked intensively with the artist for decades, has reported on their shared history in a short film. We hope you enjoy watching it.

Works

Publications