Galerie Martin van Zomeren is pleased to announce the representation of the Isreali artist Assaf Gruber (1980, Tel Aviv).
Graduating this year from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts, Paris, this is Gruber’s first presentation in the Netherlands.
At the heart of Assaf Gruber’s works lies violence and memory that always
remains beneath a certain surface: gentle, aesthetic, mechanic, systematic, hidden and bridled. The work seems to emphasize the tension between violence and restraint, personal and collective, sense and absurd, often roll- shifting between the victim, the aggressor and the viewer.
Throughout the displayed work Gruber’s exploration of concept through materiality is revealed: The combinations between materials like rough metal mix with photography development sheets, hundreds of shiny red billiard balls shot in a tennis court, vulgar- sliced bowling balls held by one meter iron bridle, a re-edited 1:25 min. scene from the film ‘Superman’, white wooden broken maracas hanged from the ceiling above 20 kilogram of raw rice explosion.
Gruber’s works through different medias provides analogies for absurdity of the force by absurd of actions, an un- selective memory and vulnerability in a purely-vulgar visual language.
Assaf Gruber works and lives in Paris. His recent and upcoming exhibitions include ‘Bridle’ at Galerie Martin van Zomeren, Amsterdam, group show at Bernard Jourdan Gallery, Paris, Gilit Fisher Gallery, Tel Aviv.
His past exhibitions include ‘Leftovers‘, Lubalin Center, Cooper union, New-York; ‘Société Anonyme’, Le Plateau Frac, Ile de France, Paris; ‘D’un mur à l’autre’, Aponia, Villiers sur Marne.
Martin Neumaier (1970, Hurth, Germany) is a painter who deals with contemporary signs or symbols, playing with and fusing words and meanings in the context of typographic styles and the tradition of painting, and recombining them into unfamiliar images. His recent paintings brings to mind the vocabulary of the abstract tradition from the early nineteenth century from the north of Europe.
Martin Neumaier lives and works in Frankfurt and is represented by Parisa Kind, Frankfurt. Recent exhibitions include Portikus, Frankfurt, Galerie Dependance, Brussels and Galerie Luis Campana in Köln.
