Grisha Bruskin (b. 1945), internationally acclaimed contemporary artist is exhibiting this winter at Meyerovich Gallery, San Francisco. Grisha Bruskin is widely recognized for an oeuvre that deeply engages philosophy, history, and religion.
The exhibition Grisha Bruskin: Paintings and Sculpture features a group of oil paintings, works on paper, bronze sculptures, colorful flat sculptures, and hand painted porcelain plates. These artworks explore Bruskin’s own world of images and meanings, united by themes from mythological, Kabbalistic and folklore traditions. Bruskin’s art is largely based on the use of symbols of one kind or another. In the same way that the letters of the alphabet are symbols and when put together form words, in Bruskin’s paintings he arranges figures which have symbolic meaning to form a visual lexicon. The artist states, “To me each personage has a specific meaning. All of them make up a kind of text. Each personage is a letter in my own alphabet.”
In the art of Grisha Bruskin we are facing two themes: one is connected with the myth of Communism, the other one with the myth of Judaism. Both of these themes were on view this summer in Venice, Italy. Bruskin exhibited in this year’s Collateral Event at the 56th Venice Biennale by creating a site-specific exhibition titled An Archaeologist’s Collection, a journey to the future among the ruins of the Soviet Empire at the former church of Santa Caterina.
In parallel to the Venice Biennale, Grisha Bruskin offers us an evocative and inspiring exhibition displayed at the Querini Stampalia Foundation Museum, his first show in Venice. Alefbet – Alphabet Memory includes five large tapestries, preparatory drawings, gouaches, and six oil paintings. This exhibition gives a pictorial synthesis of history and memory, merging the thousand-year old Jewish tradition of Talmud and Kabbalah with Russian political and cultural history and the origin of the artist.
Bruskin is represented in the following public collections: The Museum of Modern Art, N.Y; Guggenheim Museum, N.Y.; de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Katzen American University Museum, Washington D.C.; the Museum Ludwig (Cologne); Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University; National Gallery of Art in Caracas; The Art Institute of Chicago; State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia; State Tretyakov Gallery; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Jewish Museum, N.Y.; Kunsthalle Emden, Germany; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Russia and State Tretyakoff Gallery, Moscow among others. In 2012 he won the prestigious Kandinsky Prize, Art Chronika Foundation, Moscow, Russia.
For more information or additional visuals, please visit our website: www.meyerovich.com or contact Alex Meyerovich at the gallery: 415-421-7171 / art@meyerovich.com
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