| ISAAC
ABRAMS
Abrams was the former owner of Coda Gallery.
The Coda Gallery was noted for its introduction of Psychedelic
Art into the mainstream of American media consciousness. Abrams
studied in Austria under the tutelage of Ernst Fuchs whose school
and method of painting runs in an unbroken line of students
and teachers from Albrecht Durer to the present. Dr. Fuchs'
techniques and artistic concepts were profoundly stimulating.
Abrams remained in Vienna an additional six months.
Mr. Abrams showed his work in Munich at the
Gallery Hartmann and in Vienna at the Gallery Ariadne. Returning
to the U.S. in 1973, he moved to upstate New York where he isolated
himself for a period of experiment and development in the areas
of painting, graphics and video. He also moved into a new area
of self-expression: sculpture.
In 1975, Mr. Abrams went to Santa Fe, New Mexico,
where working at the Shidoni foundry, he completed the development
of the vocabulary of his new sculptural work.
Returning to New York City in 1976, Mr. Abrams
established himself as an up-and-coming artist whose work is
remarkable both for its technical quality and vision.
He begins his work with a series of loosely
conceived juxtapositions and then discovers in those juxtapositions
the metaphysical and cosmic concepts which are so often expressed
in his art.
His works are sudden leaps into unknown spaces,
into free-floating gravityless existences, where angels and
demons, concepts and conceptions appear and disappear, where
paradoxes proliferate and where each viewing of the painting
may bring to the viewer a new and different cross combination
of the ele- ments within.
His intentions are to create a painting viewable
at any distance from inches to yards or dozens of yards; a piece
having a vital life which is not dependent on a single point
of view or a single conception of what was within.
A Jungian psychoanalyst, for example, has said
that Mr. Abrams' works relate to certain archetypical experiences
which are often seen in the dreams and fantasies of her patients;
a physicist sees various assertions of the latest thinking about
the gravitational effects of large bodies on space, time and
the "shape" of the universe.
A biologist may see animals, or microbes, which
seem to illustrate his own work. For many people, their concept
perception of what Mr. Abrams does is based upon what they themselves
are doing.
Mr. Abrams feels that he is an open channel.
His work is not limited by his own knowledge. He is open to
third forces; the first being himself, the second being the
painting; and the third being the forces of unconscious cross-connection
of all thoughts into one great mind. Having experienced this
unity of all thought forms into the one thought form, Mr. Abrams
is capable of reaching into the many areas of human experience,
to snatch from the pool of the collective consciousness of all
minds, extraordinarily acute perceptions.
The minds of some artists have evolved to the
point where they are not so much fabricators as they are conduits.
In the process of becoming a conduit, much comes through a person
that is fundamentally beyond most people but yet remains startlingly
clear to them.
Isaac Abrams is such an artist.
GROUP SHOW
- 1967
- "The Visionaries" East- hampton Gallery, 56th St. N.Y.C.
ONE MAN SHOW
- 1967
- Easthampton Gallery, 56th St., N.Y.C.
- Group Show, "Psychedelic Art" Galerie Bischofberger,
Zurich, Switzerland
- 1968
- One Man Show Galerie Bischofberger, Zurich, Switzerland
- 1969
- One Man Show Easthampton Gallery, N.Y.C.
- 1970
- One Man Show Galerie Bischofberger, Zurich, Switzerland
- 1971
- Videotape exhibted at the Whiteney Mueum
- 1972
- Exhibition of Major Drawings Galerie Richard Hartmann,
Munich Studies in Austria with Ernst Fuchs
- 1973
- One Man Show Jesse Burton Stone Gallery, Prince St.,
N.Y.C.
- 1974
- One Man Show Dworkin Gallery, Madison Ave., N.Y.C.
- 1976
- First Annual Shidoni Sculpture Exhibition, Shidoni Foundry,
Santa Fe, New Mexico
also:
Participation in numerous other shows under the aegis
of the Galerie Bischofberger in: London: Drawing Masters of
the 20th Century, Tate Gallery Cologne Museum: New Directions
Rome, Milan, Basel, St. Moritz
and:
Participation in many other group shows and exhibitions
in N.Y.C., Woodstock, San Francisco, Majorca, Vienna
OTHER ACTIVITIES
- 1965
- Owner and Director~CODA Gallery, 89 E. 10th St. Exhibitions
of paintings, graphics, light works, multi- media events,
theater pieces, dance and film and poetry series. Multi-media
work with Patrick Firpo, Jacky Cassen and Rudi Stern and
others Costume design for Todd Rundgren & Utopia Video
work with The Grateful Dead, New Riders, and others Video
Experimental program with Teletape Inc. Performance Pieces
with the Word Band
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