Joshua Neustein
Encyclopedia
Joshua Neustein is a contemporary visual artist living and working in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. He is known primarily for his environmental installations and Post Minimalist torn paper works, as well as his series of large-scale map paintings. He is considered to be one of the founding fathers of Environmental, Conceptual Art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

 into the Israeli scene. He was a teacher at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

Early Career, 1964-1971

Neustein was born in 1940, in Danzig
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...

, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

. After studying painting at the Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...

 in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Neustein immigrated to Jerusalem in 1964. He began to show regularly in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and the UK, but it was his ambitious 1971 Jerusalem River Project (collaboration with Gerry Marx and Georgette Batlle) action, a site-specific “sound sculpture” in which speakers installed across a desert valley played looped sounds of a river, that earned him more widespread recognition. Photo documentation of the piece was shown at the Israel Museum
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

, Yvon Lambert Gallery
Yvon Lambert Gallery
Yvon Lambert Gallery is a contemporary art gallery founded by Yvon Lambert in 1966. There are two locations; one in Paris and the second in New York City.-History:...

 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...

, MOCA LA, Tokyo Museum of Art, MAK Vienna and MACBA. During the same period, Neustein built an oeuvre of large torn paper works that received broad critical attention from writers such as Joseph Masheck, Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe, and Noel Frackman.

Major work, 1971-78

From 1971 until 1998, Neustein showed at the Bertha Urdang Gallery in Jerusalem and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Bertha Urdang served as his dealer until her retirement in 1998. In 1970, Neustein began his Carbon Series, a series of drawings created by creating cuts, tears, and folds in carbon copy paper. Acclaimed art critic Robert Pincus-Witten wrote about the work in "The Neustein Papers", 1977. Neustein performed "Territorial Imperative", in which he visited Golan Heights and the Israeli/Syrian border (1976), then Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 (1977), Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...

, East/West border (1977), and Krusa
Kruså
Kruså is a Danish border town and border crossing with a population of 1,655 , six kilometers north of Flensburg, situated on the European route E45...

, German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

/Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 border (1978) with a male dog that urinated on the land at each site. His large-scale installations from the time included quotidian objects such as haybales, boots, pinecones, and rainwater. During the same period, Neustein began a long, innovative exploration of drawing, amassing a large body of work that includes torn and folded works on paper, erasure drawings, and the carbon series. Neustein participated in the landmark Beyond Drawing show at the Israel Museum
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

 in 1974, curated by Meira Perry Lehmann.

New York, 1978-1990

Neustein returned to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 in 1978 and opened a studio in Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...

, where he continues to live and work today. He joined the Mary Boone Gallery that same year, where he showed his Folded Canvases. During this period, Neustein showed frequently in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. He began to explore maps in the mid-80's, through large-scale paintings on canvas and images scraped into rusted metal.

Archives and Ash Cities, 1990-1999

In the 90's, Neustein returned to large scale installation with his series of environmental installations, the Five Ash Cities. These were gallery-wide site specific floor maps of cities constructed out of packed ashes. The works often incorporated large ceiling-mounted crystal chandeliers hung low above the floor, or resting in a mound of ashes. The Ash Cities were created at SECCA North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, curated by Jeff Flemming; ICC
ICC
-Political:* International Control Commission, which oversaw the 1954 Geneva Accords ending the First Indochina War* International Communist Current, a communist organization* Interstate Commerce Commission, a now defunct US Government regulatory body...

 Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, curated by Krukowski; ICC
ICC
-Political:* International Control Commission, which oversaw the 1954 Geneva Accords ending the First Indochina War* International Communist Current, a communist organization* Interstate Commerce Commission, a now defunct US Government regulatory body...

 Cleveland, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

, curated by Jill Snyder; Gropiusbau, Berlin, curated by Amnon Barzel
Amnon Barzel
-Education:Barzel is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he majored in Natural Science. Barzel earned his post-graduate degree at the University La Sorbonne in Paris, France, in Art History.-Career:...

; and the Herzliyah Museum, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, curated by Wendy Shafir.

In 1995, Neustein represented Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 in the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

 with "The Possessed Library", curated by Gideon Ofrat. The work addressed issues of archiving and memory, and referenced Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...

's Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...

 opera, in which the villainous Baron Scarpia has a torture chamber in his library. Neustein surrounded the facade of the Israeli pavilion with scaffolding and plexiglas panels etched with book titles in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Braille
Braille
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing.Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two...

, and Hebrew. Bubble wrap sacks hung suspended from two large parked cranes, one just above the pavilion, and one dipping in through a skylight in "The Tosca Room". Inside the pavilion, Neustein mounted the "Baron Scarpia Archive", a room full of archival boxes, slides, and microfiche. "The Tosca Room" was surrounded by etched plexiglas panels covered in soot, while the floors were covered in ashes, terra cotta letters, and panels of glass on which viewers could walk. A soundtrack of Puccini's famous "E Lucevan Le Stelle" aria being whistled was played on a loop in the space.

In 1996, Neustein's work was included in The Arturo Schwarz
Arturo Schwarz
Arturo Umberto Samuele Schwarz son of a German father and an Italian mother, is an Italian scholar, art historian, poet, writer, lecturer, art consultant and curator of international art exhibitions...

 Collection
exhibition at the Israel Museum
Israel Museum
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

.

Recent work, 2000-present

In the 2000s, Neustein contributed to solo and group shows at the Herzliya
Herzliya
Herzliya is a city in the central coast of Israel, at the western part of the Tel Aviv District. It has a population of 87,000 residents. Named after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, Herzliya covers an area of 26 km²...

 Museum Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

, Palazzo Delle Arti Napoli, the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

, and the Chelsea Art Museum
Chelsea Art Museum
The Chelsea Art Museum is a contemporary art museum located at 556 West 22nd Street on the corner of Eleventh Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City....

. In 2002, the JCC New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 commissioned an original work to be installed permanently in the lobby, a life-size bronze cast of a tree with terra-cotta colored letters climbing its trunk. In 2004, Neustein completed a video piece titled "Luftkissen", shown at Shering Fine Art, Berlin (2004), and the Haifa Museum
Haifa Museum
The Haifa Museum of Art , established in 1951, is located in a historic building built in the 1930's in Wadi Nisnas, Downtown Haifa...

 of Art (2006). Neustein participated in Dangerous Beauty at the Chelsea Art Museum
Chelsea Art Museum
The Chelsea Art Museum is a contemporary art museum located at 556 West 22nd Street on the corner of Eleventh Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City....

, which traveled to the Palazzo Delle Arti Napoli in 2007 (under the title Belezza Pericolosa).

In June 2009, Neustein created Margins, an on-site installation at the Royal Ontario Museum
Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With its main entrance facing Bloor Street in Downtown Toronto, the museum is situated north of Queen's Park and east of Philosopher's Walk in the University of Toronto...

, Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

. The installation will remain through March, 2010.

Short list–major works

Rainwater (1968), Boots 1969, Jerusalem River Project(1971, Road Piece (1971) Hay Bales an Hay Bindings(1972,'73, '99, Dead Sea Journey film made from 3 postcards(1971), Mobile Landscape (1974), Territorial Imperative (1976,77,79), Where Are the Miami Indians (1983), How History Became Geography (1990), Still Life (1983), Still Life on the Border (1993), Possessed Library (1995), Five Ash Cities(1996,97,98,2000), Blind Library (1998), Fanning the Fear (2003), What Did I Forget (2004),

Painting and Drawings Earliest works: Oil pastel paintings; torn folded drawings; carbon copy series; text by Barry Schwabsky. Albright Knox Gallery 1992; Grey Art Gallery NYU 1993. Jeremy Gilbert Rolfe essay Torn Grey Impermanent. Artforum Summer 1978

Was part of an art movement called Epistemic Abstraction by Robert Pincus-Witten see Eye to Eye: 20 Years of Art Criticism, Robert Pincus-Witten, Paperback 1984)

Installations:
  • Neustein's Rainwater 1968 in which water trickled down a suspended metal tube from roof onto a pan on the floor. Boots Gallery House Jerusalem 1969.
  • Boots 1969 (collaboration with Gerry Marx) piles of military boots from armies that passed through Ottoman, Palestine and Israel
  • Jerusalem River Project 1971 (Collaboration with Gerard Marx and Georgette Batlle.) Sound sculpture of taped water sounds in a dry valley (wadi). Was exhibited in Boston Museum of Fine Arts Earth Air Fire Water in 1971 Neustein was the first to introduce environmental/installation art into the Israeli scene.
  • Photo strategies Barrier Piece Israel Museum
    Israel Museum
    The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

     1971, Photo Triennale Israel Museum
    Israel Museum
    The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

     1975, Arkwright Arts Centre London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

     1972. Listening to Hay Gallery House London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

     1972, Sound Sculptures Goethe House London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

     1972
  • Hay Bales 1971 bales of hay and sound tapes of highway traffic, Tel Aviv Museum 1971
  • Hay Bales and Hay Bindings Gallery House London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

     UK 1971
  • Photo Strategies Israel Museum
    Israel Museum
    The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

     1971 Camden Arts Centre
    Camden Arts Centre
    Camden Arts Centre is a contemporary visual art gallery, dedicated to engaging living artists from across the world. Positioning the artist at the centre of the programme, Camden Arts Centre strives to involve the public in the ideas and work of today's artists.The exhibition and education...

     London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

     UK
  • Sound tapes and video pieces Gallery House London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

    . 1971
  • Territorial Imperative Golan Heights, Krusa Denmark, Kassel Germany (commissioned then rejected by Dokumenta 1977) realized in Belfast, Northern Ireland 1976-79
  • Still Life 1983 Burnt Airplane; Lebanon/Israel Border. How History Became Geography 1990 Barbicam Arts Centre, London. Possessed Library Venice Biennale 1995 made of soot, books, cranes, alphabet, glass, scaffolds, whistling sounds. 5 Ash Cities 1996- made of tons of ashes and chandelier; SECCA North Carolina
    North Carolina
    North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

    ; CCA
    CCA
    CCA can refer to:*ICAO callsign for Air China*California Charter Academy*California College of the Arts*California Culinary Academy*Canadian Canoe Association*Canadian Cascade Arc*Canadian Cat Association*Canadian Centre for Architecture...

     Cleveland; Gropius Bau Museum Insel, Berlin
    Berlin
    Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

    , Germany
    Germany
    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

     1998; Ujazdowsky Palace CCA Warsaw
    Warsaw
    Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

    , Poland
    Poland
    Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

    ; Herzeliya Museum Israel
    Israel
    The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

    . 2 Essays by Arthur Danto Unnatural Wonders Farrar Strauss Geroux 2005; Blind Library Tel Aviv
    Tel Aviv
    Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

     Israel
    Israel
    The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

     1998;

External links

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