Joshua Neustein (born 1940) is a contemporary visual artist who lives and works in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. He is known for his

Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

, environmental installations, Land Art,

Postminimalist Postminimalism is an art term coined (as post-minimalism) by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971Chilvers, Ian and Glaves-Smith, John, ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art'', second edition (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. ...

torn paper works, epistemic abstraction, deconstructed canvas works, and large-scale map paintings.

Early life and education

Neustein was born in Danzig (present day Gdańsk,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

). As refugees, his family immigrated to the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, and finally settled in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

in the early 1950s. After studying history at

CCNY The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, City ...

, and painting under

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

at the Pratt Institute in

, Neustein

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

in 1964.

Work

Neustein has a diverse artistic practice that includes painting, drawings and works on paper, large-scale installation, film and video, performance, and monumental land art works. Neustein's work is held in numerous public institutional collections, including the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, the

Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...

, the Israel Museum, the

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, the Tel Aviv Museum, Albright Knox Gallery, and others. In recent years, Neustein's work has been included in several group exhibitions at museums and galleries, including the

Nasher Sculpture Center Opened in 2003, the Nasher Sculpture Center is a museum in Dallas, Texas, that houses the Patsy and Raymond Nasher collection of modern and contemporary sculpture. It is located on a site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the Dallas Art ...

, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art , Los Angeles, Haus Der Kunst, Munich, and

David Zwirner Gallery David Zwirner Gallery is an American contemporary art gallery owned by David Zwirner. It has four gallery spaces in New York City and one each in London, Hong Kong, and Paris. History The Zwirner Gallery opened in 1993 on the ground floor of ...

. Art historians

Robert Pincus-Witten Robert Pincus-Witten (April 5, 1935 – January 28, 2018) was an American art critic, curator and art historian. Biography Born in New York City, Pincus-Witten earned his undergraduate degree at The Cooper Union, in New York City in 1956. He wrote ...

Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe (born August 4th, 1945) is a British-born American painter, art critic, theorist, and educator, born in Royal Tunbridge Wells, United Kingdom. In 1968, he moved to the United States. Gilbert-Rolfe holds several degrees, incl ...

, and

Arthur Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for ''The Nation'' and for his work in philosophi ...

, as well as philosophers Hilary Putnam and

Martin Jay Martin Evan Jay (born May 4, 1944) is an American intellectual historian whose research interests connected history with the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, social theory, cultural criticism, and historiography. He is currently the Sid ...

, have written extensively about Neustein's work. Between 1964 and 1998, Neustein was represented by Bertha Urdang Gallery in New York and Jerusalem. In 1979, Neustein had a solo exhibition at

Mary Boone Gallery Mary Boone (born c. 1951/1952) is an American art dealer and collector. Life Boone moved to New York City at the age of 19 from Erie, Pennsylvania to a working class family of Egyptian immigrants. She studied Art History at Rhode Island School o ...

in which he showed reconstructed canvases. Between 1973-77, Neustein showed at the Yodfat Gallery and Naomi Givon Gallery, in Tel Aviv.

Early career

Neustein began to show regularly in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and the UK, starting his "Carbon Copy Drawing" series in 1970 by "marking" carbon paper stationary with cuts, tears, and folds. However, it was his 1971 ''Jerusalem River Project'' (made in collaboration with Gerry Marx and Georgette Batlle) -- a site-specific "

sound sculpture Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound ar ...

" action in which loudspeakers installed across a desert valley played the looped recorded sound of a river—that earned him more widespread recognition. Photo documentation of the piece was shown at the Israel Museum,

Yvon Lambert Gallery Yvon Lambert Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Paris founded by Yvon Lambert in 1966. History In 1966, Yvon Lambert opened his first gallery on the rue de L'Échaudé in Paris, France where he began to exhibit American artists. He showed fo ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ...

Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo The is a contemporary art museum in Koto, Tokyo, Japan. The museum is located in Kiba Park. It was opened in 1995. Collections *''Marilyn Monroe'' by Andy Warhol (1967) *'' Girl with Hair Ribbon'' by Roy Lichtenstein (1965) *''Honey-pop'' by ...

, MAK Vienna, and MACBA. Curator Yonah Fischer supported Neustein's work, including him in several exhibitions at the Israel Museum such as ''Concept Plus Information'', and assisting in the realization and display of ''The Jerusalem River Project''. During the same period, Neustein started to build an oeuvre of large torn paper works that received critical attention.

Mature work

Drawing, Installation, ''Territorial Imperative''

In the same period, Neustein began an extensive and innovative drawing practice that continues today, amassing a large body of work that grew to include torn and folded works on paper, erasure drawings, magnetic "drawings", and the ''Carbon Paper'' or ''Carbon Copy Drawing'' series, in which formerly standard carbon copy paper is torn, folded, pressed, and scraped. Neustein participated in the landmark ''Beyond Drawing'' show at the Israel Museum in 1974, curated by Yona Fischer and Meira Perry Lehmann. In 1977, the Tel Aviv Museum mounted a ten-year retrospective of Neustein's works on paper, curated by Sarah Breitberg. In 1992, the Albright Knox mounted a solo show of Carbon Copy Drawings which travelled to the

Grey Art Gallery The Grey Art Gallery is New York University’s fine art museum, located on historic Washington Square Park, in New York City's Greenwich Village. As a university art museum, the Grey Art Gallery functions to collect, preserve, study, document, in ...

NYU New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. A solo show of his "magnetic drawings" were shown at Wynn Kramarsky Gallery in 1998. Alongside his studio practice, Neustein has mounted large-scale installations throughout his career that often included quotidian objects such as

hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticat ...

bales, boots, pinecones, and rainwater, as well as monumental land art works. Neustein was among the first artists to introduce environmental and installation art into the Israeli art scene. Notable examples include ''Still Life,'' 1983'','' in which the life-size silhouette of an Israeli war plane was singed into the turf on the Israel-Lebanon border with burning tires. In 1976, Neustein enacted ''Territorial Imperative'', in which the artist documented a dog marking his territory along the Israeli-Syrian border in the

Golan Heights The Golan Heights ( ar, هَضْبَةُ الْجَوْلَانِ, Haḍbatu l-Jawlān or ; he, רמת הגולן, ), or simply the Golan, is a region in the Levant spanning about . The region defined as the Golan Heights differs between di ...

, identifying spots the dog had marked with posters and maps. Neustein repeated the action in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

between the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods (1977); in

Kruså Kruså (; German: ''Krusau'') is a Danish border town and border crossing with a population of 1,560 (1 January 2022),Kassel, Germany, along the East and West German border, as a participant in

Documenta 6 documenta 6 was the sixth edition of documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition. It was held between 24 June and 2 October 1977 in Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hess ...

(1977). Over curator Manfred Schneckenburger's objections, Neustein's work was "withdrawn" from Documenta, after the German government advised the artist that his piece caused "consternation among specialists" about what they described as the "complicated relationship between West Berlin and the German Democratic Republic."

Painting'', Five Ash Cities'' and Venice Biennale

In the mid-1980s, Neustein produced maps painted on canvas and cardboard, or etched into rusted metal. In the 1990s, Neustein returned to large-scale installation, with a series of environmental works he called the ''Five Ash Cities''. He worked closely with Wendy Shafir, who was alternately his dealer, curator, and collaborator. The ''Ash Cities'' were immersive, room-sized relief maps of cities, constructed out of packed ashes that rested on the floor of the exhibition space. They often included crystal chandeliers installed to hang low to the ground, so they nearly touched the ash-covered floor. ''Ash Cities'' were realized at

Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is a multimedia contemporary art gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. SECCA has no permanent collection but offers exhibitions of works by artists with regional, national, and international ...

, North Carolina; the

Ujazdów Castle Ujazdów Castle ( pl, Zamek Ujazdowski) is a castle in the historic Ujazdów district, between Ujazdów Park (''Park Ujazdowski'') and the Royal Baths Park (''Łazienki Królewskie''), in Warsaw, Poland. Its beginnings date to the 13th century ...

, Warsaw; moCa, Cleveland, curated by Jill Snyder; ''Bilder Sind Verboten'' at Martin Gropius-bau, Berlin, curated by Eckhart Gillen and Amnon Barzel; and the Herzliya Museum, curated by Wendy Shafir. In 1990, another chandelier work, ''How History Became Geography'' was exhibited at the Barbican Centre, London. Documentation was later shown by the Israel Museum. In 1995, Neustein was selected to represent Israel in the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. For ''The Possessed Library'', curated by Gideon Ofrat, Neustein had two large cranes parked nearby the Israeli Pavilion, the facade of which he surrounded with construction

scaffolding Scaffolding, also called scaffold or staging, is a temporary structure used to support a work crew and materials to aid in the construction, maintenance and repair of buildings, bridges and all other man-made structures. Scaffolds are widely use ...

. Plexiglas panels etched with book titles lined the scaffolding, resembling books on shelves, while

bubble wrap __NOTOC__ Bubble wrap is a pliable transparent plastic material used for packing fragile items. Regularly spaced, protruding air-filled hemispheres (bubbles) provide cushioning for fragile items. In 1957, two inventors named Alfred Fielding a ...

sacks hung suspended from the cranes, one just above the pavilion's roof, the other dipping in through a skylight in "The Tosca Room". "The Tosca Room" walls were covered in soot, while its floors were strewn with terra-cotta letters under plexiglass. A soundtrack played a whistled version of the "

E Lucevan Le Stelle "" ("And the stars were shining") is a romantic aria from the third act of Giacomo Puccini's opera ''Tosca'' from 1900, composed to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is sung in act 3 by Mario Cavaradossi (tenor), a pain ...

" aria from

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. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language drama ...

. Neustein later used recycled components from the Biennale in ''The Blind Library'' (1998) at Bet Ariella Library. In 1996, Neustein's work was included in the

Arturo Schwarz Arturo Umberto Samuele Schwarz (2 February 1924 – 23 June 2021) was an Italian scholar, art historian, poet, writer, lecturer, art consultant and curator of international art exhibitions. He lived in Milan, where he amassed a large collection o ...

Collection exhibition at the Israel Museum. In 1998, several of Neustein's environmental works were exhibited in ''Out of Actions,'' curated by Paul Shimmel at LA MOCA, and traveling to MAK Vienna,

Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art ( ca, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, , MACBA) is a contemporary art museum situated in the Plaça dels Àngels, in El Raval, Ciutat Vella, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The museum opened to the publ ...

, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan.

2000s and 2010s

During the early- and mid-2000s, Neustein had significant participations in exhibitions at the Palazzo Delle Arti Napoli, the Haifa Museum of Art, the Time Depot, and the Chelsea Art Museum. During this time, Neustein permanently installed a life-size bronze cast of a tree with terra-cotta colored letters climbing its trunk in the lobby of the JCC in Manhattan. In 2010, the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto commissioned ''Margins'', an installation that included a chandelier embedded in the wall alongside texts screened onto the wall and plexiglass sheets, referring to the writings of Edmond Jabès. In 2012, Neustein mounted a large-scale retrospective at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, titled ''Drawing in the Margins'', which included 67 works spanning 40 years. The exhibition was curated by Meira Perry Lehmann. Neustein mounted ''Boss,'' a solo exhibition at Untitled gallery on New York's Lower East Side, the same year. In the past decade, Neustein has participated in numerous group exhibitions at museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (''Paper Trails,'' a historic show of works on paper curated by Marla Prather in 2011), the

, LA MOCA (the

), the Haus Der Kunst, Munich, and

. For LA MOCA, Neustein reenacted ''Road Piece'' (1971) as part of "Ends of the Earth"'','' an exhibition on Land Art curated by Philipp Kaiser and art historian Miwon Kwon. The show travelled to the Haus Der Kunst with director and curator

Okwui Enwezor Okwui Enwezor (23 October 1963 – 15 March 2019) was a Nigerian curator, art critic, writer, poet, and educator, specializing in art history. He lived in New York City and Munich. In 2014, he was ranked 24 in the ''ArtReview'' list of the 100 m ...

Selected works list

Painting and Drawings

Earliest works: Oil pastel paintings; torn folded drawings; carbon copy series; text by Barry Schwabsky. 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)

Land & Installation Works

*''Rainwater,'' 1968; in which water trickled down a suspended metal tube from roof onto a pan on the floor. *''Boots,'' 1969 (collaboration with Gerry Marx), in which piles of military boots from armies that passed through Ottoman, Palestine and Israel, shown in Artists House, Jerusalem. *''Jerusalem River Project,'' 1971 (collaboration with Gerard Marx and Georgette Batlle.) Sound sculpture of recorded water sounds played in a

wadi Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water ...

. Shown in "Earth Air Fire Water," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1971 *''Road Piece,'' 1971 *''Dead Sea Journey,'' 1971; film made from 3 postcards *''Photo Strategies,'' 1971, Israel Museum and

Camden Arts Centre Camden Art Centre (formerly known as Hampstead Arts Centre until 1967 and Camden Arts Centre until 2020) is a contemporary art gallery in the London Borough of Camden, England that hosts temporary exhibitions and educational outreach projects. T ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

UK *''Barrier Piece'' Israel Museum 1971 *''Hay Bales,'' 1971 bales of hay and sound tapes of highway traffic, Tel Aviv Museum and

*''Hay Bales and Hay Bindings,'' 1971-1999, first shown at Gallery House,

*''Sound tapes and video pieces,'' 1971, Gallery House, London. *''Listening to Hay,'' 1972, Gallery House,

*''Sound Sculptures,'' 1972, Goethe House

*''Mobile Landscape,'' 1974 *Photo Triennale Israel Museum 1975, *''Territorial Imperative,'' 1976-79, Golan Heights; Krusa, Denmark; Kassel, Germany (commissioned, then withdrawn from

); Belfast, Northern Ireland *''Still Life,'' 1983. Life-size burned silhouette of airplane singed into turf at Lebanon/Israel Border. *''Where Are the Miami Indians,'' 1983 *''How History Became Geography,'' 1990. Barbican Arts Centre, London. *''Still Life on the Border'', 1993 *''Possessed Library,'' 1995, Israel Pavilion, Venice Biennale. Soot, books, cranes, alphabet, glass, scaffolding, whistling soundtrack. *''5 Ash Cities'' 1996-2000 - SECCA

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

; moCa

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

;

Martin Gropius Bau Martin-Gropius-Bau, commonly known as Gropius Bau, is an important exhibition building in Berlin, Germany. Originally a museum of applied arts, the building has been a listed historical monument since 1966. It is located at 7 Niederkirchnerstra� ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

1998; Ujazdowsky Palace CCA

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

; Herzliya Museum

. *''Blind Library,'' 1998'',''

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

*''Fanning the Fear'', 2003 *''What Did I Forget,'' 2004

Selected Bibliography

*Danto, Arthur (2005). "Two Installations by Joshua Neustein". ''Unnatural Wonders: Essays from the Gap Between Art and Life.'' New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005. pp. 303–320.

Education

* Pratt Institute,

* Art Students' League,

Awards and prizes

*1970 Erest Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Jerusalem *1972 The Jerusalem Prize *1974 Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem *1986 Guggeneheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York, New York, USA *1990 Grant, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York

References

External links

Joshua Neustein official site
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Neustein, Joshua American emigrants to Israel Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States 1940 births Living people Sandberg Prize recipients People from West Prussia 20th-century American painters American contemporary painters Date of birth missing (living people) Jewish American artists Jewish painters Israeli conceptual artists Israeli contemporary artists 20th-century Israeli sculptors 20th-century Israeli painters 21st-century Israeli painters 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American painters