Press & Publications

From the article in  The New York  Times, November 1st, 2009:

Minimal Abstraction: It's Alive and Well

A complex Show, Indoors and Out, Showcases a Sculptor's Skill and Range
The exhibition by Avital Oz at Art Sites in Riverhead, a powerful, rambling display of almost 50 pieces in metal, stone, wood, rubber and other materials, not only contains many fine works, it also gives us an overview of the artist's career, spanning the last 40 years. Organizing such a complex and demanding show, on view in the gallery and outdoors across a two acre site, is ambitious, especially given that some of the pieces weigh several tons and required the use of cranes to move. Mr. Oz, a resident of Westhampton since 1982, installed the exhibition gradually over several months’ time.
The hard work was worth it, for Mr. Oz has proven that minimal abstract sculpture is far from defunct and that artists continue to make interesting and innovative work in this vein. He has also proved himself to be an unjustly over-looked artist.

Art history has not been kind to those like Mr. Oz who retained an enthusiasm for the formal elements of art- like shape, scale and composition – when sculpture took a radical turn in the 1960s toward the embrace of consume objects and urban detritus.
Born in 1942, in Israel, Mr. Oz studied at the school of Visual Arts in New York in the 1960s. He was befriended by Sol LeWitt, who was so impressed with the young artist that during one of his own exhibitions at SoHo gallery he gave up two weeks to display Mr. Oz’s work. For an artist, it was extremely generous gesture of support.

Showing on a small plaza at the entrance to Art Sites is “Step Forward” (2009), a reconstruction of the work that Mr. Oz exhibited during Mr. LeWitt’s show. Consisting of interlocking wooden beams, it is meant to convey movement, literally a person walking.
Mr. Oz has reinterpreted other pieces from his early years for the current show, including “Brick Sun,” originally shown in an industrial area in New Haven in the early 1970s. The version here, titled “Sun” (2009), consists of a spiral made of white bricks wedged in sandy soil down by the Peconic River. It is simple but oddly monumental, evocative of an ancient ceremonial site.

Several of the artist’s best works in this show are in metal, including “The Square” (1978), a low-lying, gentle abstract sculpture consisting of weathered steel beams arranged to create a series of interconnecting geometric shapes. The openness of the form allows the sculpture to blend seamlessly into the landscape.
The same sensitivity to context underpins “Linkage” (1982), consisting of interlocking rectangular tubes of steel arranged in such a way as to suggest links in a massive chain. This is a beautiful work, maybe the best here, exhibiting a sense of dynamic movement and balance that looks easy but in fact is one of the hardest things to achieve in sculpture on this scale.
Besides the large scale outdoor pieces, the show includes preparatory drawings, models, prints and smaller sculptures in the gallery, including the stunning “Black Sun “(1980), a mesmerizing hollow disc with smooth black finish.

This show is epic in scale and ambition.


 

From an article in The SouthHampton Press, November 19, 2009.

Exhibitions Take Parallel Paths

To the casual observer, the current exhibition at Art Sites in Riverhesd and the Richard D'Amato Fine Arts Gallery in Sag Harbor might seem not merely geographically fer apart in terms of both style and aesthetics.
At the same time, both Jacques Moiroud's finely detailed representational etchings and Avital Oz's abstract minimalist sculpture do share some interesting points of aesthetic convergence, particularly in the manner that both refine images to their most essential and elemental components.
So, while using dramatically different processes and priorities, each artist nevertheless seeks, in the words of the author Antoine de Saint - Exupery, the point at which "prefection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to take away."
This is most obviously evident in Mr. Oz's retrospective exhibition of sculptures and drawings at Art Sites in Riverhead where one is reminded that the impact of minimalism far transcends the judgmentally narrow condemnation of many revisionist art critics and historians.
Contrary to traditionalist diatribes that champion anti-intellectualism in art, these works illustrate that minimalism's stripped down qualities aren't meant to erase the complexities of the raw power of structure absent unnecessary embellishments can conjure Mr. Oz's hands in this exhibit, veer from the whimsically rhythmic to the eloquently impassive.
Consisting of preparatory drawings and small models as well as large-scale sculptures, installed both inside the gallery and dotting the landscape leading down to the Peconic River, the works gain their greatest measure of impact from the ease with they balance intellectual import with harmonic configurations.
Perhaps most impressively, this is accomplished as a result of the artist allowing the materials themselves to influence the way a piece is received.
In "Promethean," for example, the sensuously twisted wooden beams appear, from a distance, to be almost completely clean and sanded.
When the piece is viewed up close, the way the artist has and natural qualities to create a subtle sense of syncopation as the viewer's eyes move along the work.
This is also the case with the free standing "Homage to Giotto."
The darker areas of this twisting figure are smoothly sanded and stained while the lighter strata, which impart the rotating sensation to the piece, allow the original grains in the wood to create connections to its unrefined beginnings.
In another series that contrasts organic with more industrial materials, small scale works conjure elements of dance and movement, such as "Bolero," "Rumba" and" S wing," culminating in the large-scale "Tango #3," which dominates the rear gallery.
Marrying opposites in form and materials, the works are wildly expressive in turms of the forms grants them an atmosphere of restraint that is both elegant and arresting.
The exhibition of works by Avital Oz continues at Art Sites in Riverhead through December 6.




Selected Publications

2009 The N.Y. Times. November 1st. "Minimal Abstraction: It's Alive and Well".
2002 Arts letters,Delaware,N.Y.U.S.A.
2001 The N.Y. Sunday Times. Suffolk Life. N.Y. U.S.A.
2000 The Independent, N.Y.U.S.A
1997 Dan's Papers,L.I. N.Y. U.S.A.
1994 The Southhampton Press, N.Y. U,S.A.
1988 "The Sculpture Idea" by James Kelly. U.S.A.
1987 The Jerusalem Post, Hadaf Hayarok, Kibbutz, Israel.
1981 The N.Y. Times, The Chatham Courier. U.S.A.
1976 Art in America Nov / Dec. Art Magazine Oct.
1973 The New Havan Courier Jurnal. U.S.A.