Volf Roitman
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Volf Roitman (Russian: Волф Ройтман) (30 December 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay – 25 April 2010)[1] was a painter, sculptor and architect, sometimes referred to as a Renaissance Man, the son of Jewish Russian/Romanian parents.
He grew up in
"Roitman is considered one of the great MADI creators. His disposition for aesthetic playfulness illustrates the very essence of the movement. Forms, colors, invention and imagination blend in a superabundance that alerts us to the existence of exceptional creation… …His sculptures - lamps, torches of the imagination – serve to corroborate the sense of liberty that runs through all of MADI creation "... Most recently, Roitman started to produce large transformable wall hangings called MADI
stained glass windows. He has also taken his work to new dimensions by covering ordinary buildings, such as the Wood Building in Marshall, Texas and the MADI Museum in Dallas, with his vividly colored, three-dimensional panels, thus creating giant MADI "sculpture" pieces. Of the latter building, LA Weekly critic Peter Frank wrote, "The building … marks a landmark in recent history of art … Not since the Museum of non-Objective Art in New York morphed into the Guggenheim Museum more than half a century ago has there been anything like this in North America."[attribution needed]
MADI has proved itself to be the longest-running, continuously active art movement in the world. The entity which Arden Quin and Roitman formed in 1951 eventually evolved into MADI International, that today comprises some sixty artists working on four continents.
Early years
In 1951, Roitman moved to Paris, where he met the founder of the MADI movement, the
Roitman navigated through the Parisian
During this period, Roitman's paintings were exhibited at the following venues:
- Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris: 1952 – 53 – 54 – 55 -56.
- Galerie Suzanne Michel, Paris, February 1953
- Cercle Paul Valéry, La Sorbonne, Paris, 15 June 1953.
- Galerie de l’Odéon, Paris February 1954.
- Galerie Cimaise, in the show "14 Abstract Artistes", Paris, January 1955 acquis les bases solides de l’évolution picturale qui se manifestait alors.
- In November, 1955, Volf Roitman's exhibition at the Galérie de Beaune in Paris constituted the first solo show by a MADI artist in Europe.
- Galerie Denise René, Paris, a group show in April 1956 [1].
From 1961 to 1982, Roitman consecrated himself mainly to literature and other creative activities.[3]
The Var – Barcelona – 1979–1998
In 1979, although retaining his near Paris residence until 1984, Roitman started progressively to live most of the year in Montauroux, a village in the Var, behind the French Riviera.
In 1982, Roitman produced his first
4–30 November 1984: Exhibition of Arte MADI, 1946–1984, Attualita de un Movimento, variation on the de la Salle show in Oct., held at Il Salotto Gallerie d’Arte, Como, Italy. Manifesto called Perchè Arte MADI written by Salvador Presta and signed by A.Q., Presta, de la Salle, Roitman and Esposito.
April 1991: Inauguration of Arte Concreto Invención, Arte MADI, an important historical book and retrospective organized by Miklos von Bartha at the Haus für Konstructive und Konkrete Kunst in
April 1992: Abstraction Geometrique show at the Galerie de la Salle, St-Paul-de-Vence. Participants are Arden Quin, Bolivar, Chubac, Demarco, Garcia-Rossi, Lapeyrère, Melé, Poirot-Matsuda, Faucon, Belleudy, Caporicci, Desserprit, Le Cousin, Nemours, Presta, Blaszko, Caral, Decq, Girodon, Jonquière, Leppien, Piemonti, Sobrino, and Roitman, who is now working full-time on his paper collages and starting to apply the same three-dimensional principles of his collages to his first metal work, reliefs and sculpture pieces. From this period on, he will again show his work on a regular basis with the MADIstes.
From 1992 to 2005, Roitman became both head of Communication and Archivist for the MADI Movement. April 1993 : One-man show of Roitman's recent decoupages and his historical pieces from the 50s inaugurated at the St. Charles de Rose Gallery in Paris, and from May 7 to June 5 at the Helios Gallery in Calais, France. From 10 June to 15 September 1993, Roitman was one of the main organizers of a MADI show at the Chateau St-Cirq-Lapopie (Lot), France, a space formerly devoted to André Breton and the Surrealists, with 40 MADI artists participating. Painting, sculpture and poetic acts. (See catalogues)
9 April 1994: Inauguration of the one-man show Volf Roitman, Obras MADI at Centro de Arte La Rectoria, St-Pere-de-Vilamajor (Greater Barcelona), Spain, curated by Josep Plandiura. A room at the show is devoted to an introduction of the MADI concept to the Spanish public, and it was here that Roitman first showed his Proteus sculptures – cardboard decoupage encased in molded plastic frames and suspended from large metal stands.
1995: 8 June: In conjunction with Carmelo Arden Quin: 44 Ans Après, exhibition at Claude Dorval Gallery, Paris. Show commemorates meeting in Paris, 44 years earlier, of Arden Quin and Roitman and their founding of the MADI Research and Study Center in Arden Quin's Montparnasse studio. A conference, attended by Tomás Maldonado, founder of the Argentine movement, Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención, and a former member of MADI Argentina, is given by Roger Neyrat and Volf Roitman in the Dorval gallery on June 18. 6 October: Inauguration of Continuidad MADI show at the Centoira Gallery in Buenos Aires together with works by A.Q., Blaszko, Bolivar and Laperèyre. Oct. 30-Dec. 30: MADI, Anterioridad y Continuidad MADI exhibition at Museo Torres García - Montevideo., Montevideo, Uruguay. Historical and recent works with Arden Quin and Bolivar.
1996: 7 March– 3 April: MADI Internacional, 50 Ans Despuès, a groundbreaking international exhibition curated by Cesar Lopez-Osornio and shown at the Centro de Exposiciónes y Congresos of the Ibercaja Bank in Zaragoza, Spain. Roitman writes the historical section of the catalogue and the MADI chronology, and he shows his works with 56 MADI artists from France, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Japan, Argentina, Venezuela, United States and Uruguay which officially introduces MADI art in Spain. March 28–May 10: Inauguration of MADI: Dopo Il Rettancolo show at Arte Struktura Gallery in Milan, focused on the works of three MADI artists: Arden Quin, Salvador Presta and Roitman. 20 September, at the Albuquerque Museum, Roitman gave a conference in which he introduced his philosophy of MADI-Ludico architecture, the ideas for which grew out of his works with 3-dimensional collages and laser-cut sculpture: "Strictly polygonal design of asymmetric façades ...geometric forms with sharply defined colors and contours, tri-dimensional surfaces, a clearly 'ludico' (playful) spirit...the same basic computer program can produce an almost inexhaustible series of different exterior panels. This system provides us with the means to overthrow the tyranny of the module which has, with few exceptions, ruled architecture from the time of ancient Egypt..." The same day, in the same city, he inaugurated a solo show at the Arte Struktura Gallery. In October 1996, Roitman obtained a commission to design and build a model for his project of a MADI-Ludico building designated for a site in downtown Dallas.
1997: 30 June to 20 October: "Arte MADI", a vast retrospective curated by Maria-Lluisa Borràs for Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, with a 300-page catalogue in Spanish and English chronicling MADI history from its origins to the movement's present activities on 4 continents. Historical works by Roitman from the 50s and 2 contemporary sculpture pieces. In addition, an entire room at the Reina Sofía is devoted to a Roitman architectural model – his vision of a MADI building “where constant interplays of light and shadow situated the edifice in a chimerical constructivist category ... a game of spatial echoes”. Extracts of Roitman “Manifesto in favor of a MADI-Ludico Architecture” were published in the 300 page catalogue (see catalogue)
26 September to 31 October: Hors Cadre, exhibit of the works of Arden Quin and Volf Roitman, curated by Roberto Vignola for the Galerie Alexandre Mottier in Geneva. Da MADI à MADI, vast retrospective held at the Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Gallarate (Greater Milan), Italy, curated by Emma Zanella Manara and Anna Canali and featuring works of 44 artists working today in MADI International and a historical section spotlighting the works of Arden Quin, Blaszko, Presta and Roitman. This Milan contemporary museum has since opened a new wing designed to display its permanent collection of MADI works.
Between Florida and West Cork (1998- )
Since 1998, Roitman works out of studios in Tampa, Florida and West Cork, Ireland. In November 1999, he presented a solo show at the
Starting in January 2002, he created the entrance facade of the MADI Museum and was named its artistic director. The Museum and Gallery in the Uptown quarter of Dallas was inaugurated on 22 February 2003. The building's two principal facades were completely transformed by two-store high sculptural works specially created by Roitman during a fifteen-month period –
From 9 November 2002 to 5 January 2003 "Heart and Mind – The Art of Volf Roitman," featured at the
The Renaissance Man
Theatre, literature and movies
As both an artist and a man, Uruguayan-born, Argentine-educated, and Parisian-nurtured Volf Roitman is as difficult to seize as a woodland faun; as impossible to define as his multi-faceted, constantly changing kinetic sculptures.
Since his childhood, Roitman was attracted by the arts. Child-actor, he played in radio theater and recited poems for the benefit of the
(Certain scenes of play Thaswachuthink! were staged once more, by Diana Forgioni, at the Leepa Rattner Museum in July 2006.)
Following his return to Paris, at the end of 1960, and until 1970, Roitman supported his artistic activities by forming a company specialized in model-making and design and in the installation of booths. He built three models reproducing Normandy's beaches and villages where Dwight D. Eisenhower's Army invasion took place, for the 20th Century film The Longest Day, and later, some of the largest (up to 55 square meters) architectural projects of this period.
In 1962, under the pseudonym Alvar Dazil, he published the novel The Liquid Wall, dealing with the plight of European refugees in South America after World War I. The same year, Roitman and Arden Quin launched Ailleurs (8 issues until 1966), a French revue which published the latest in experimental art; and in the seventies, he also became involved in Parisian avant-garde film and literature.
In 1969, under the pseudonym Guillaume Roux, he wrote the play Blue Like An Orange, a prize-winner in the 1969 Enghien (France) Dramatic Art Competition.
In 1972, again under the pseudonym Guillaume Roux, he published the novel The Amerloques (The Yanks), a story of expatriate Americans in Paris, Presses de la Cité, Paris. From 1970 to 1982, together with his second wife Shelley Goodman, he was director of their film company Shelltrie Productions. An eclectic cinematographic career (productions of short films, script writing, introduction into France of films from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Iran, Kuwait, etc., distribution; owner of a 2-screen art house in the Beaubourg section of Paris) 1981: Published Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Feudal Country, a pamphlet that became famous in the cinema profession, where Roitman denounced the abuses of the monopolistic cinema system of distribution circuits: In 1985, under the pseudonym Dupond Dupont, he published another pamphlet: D'Où Vient la M… ( From Where the Sh...is Coming.) Roitman, invoking illustrious examples as Rabelais, uses the entire word.
(Certain scenes of play Thaswachuthink! were staged once more, by Diana Forgioni, at the Leepa Rattner Museum in July 2006.)
Return to visual arts
The siren song of MADI called again. All of Roitman's frenzied activity gradually gelled into an enduring passion for a particular style of architectural sculpture where each morsel of his past experience found its niche. Starting with a two-dimensional surface and using only a
The magic of
Roitman's interests in literature, cinema and politics also came together in his newest Project – large MADI "books" dedicated to The Celebration of Dissent, with Mae West and Groucho Marx sharing places of honor with other revolutionaries – the serious and the less so.
References
- ^ Meacham, Andrew (2 May 2010). "Artist Volf Roitman was quiet, intense man of diverse interests". tampabay.com. Archived from the original on 13 October 2012. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
- ^ Goodman, Shelley: Carmelo Arden Quin, When Art Jumped Out of Its Cage Madi Museum and Gallery, Dallas, Tx, 2004.
- ^ See further below The Renaissance Man