Gideon Rubin — Questions of Forgiveness — Karsten Greve Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: January 9 → March 5, 2016

The Galerie Karsten Greve presents a new solo exhibition by Gideon Rubin, Questions of Forgiveness. Representing works from between 2013 and 2015, these paintings draw their inspiration from unknown images contained in old photo albums, newspapers, or magazines such as the iconic ‘Life’. In examining these old photographs, Gideon Rubin seeks narrative elements that are open to interpretation and this, in provoking the viewer’s memories, without any representation of specific identities. The original images are reworked to oust the temporal signals and markers. Following this method, the viewer is left free to rethink the stories of these characters without faces.

Gideon Rubin has kept the sand shades, the grey-blue and off-white tones of his hyper-realistic beginnings, which he applies with broad brushstrokes. He likes to use bare canvas or linen and often leaves completely vacant sections so that they become an integral part of the work. Between abstraction and figuration, Gideon Rubin’s portraits without faces tend to materialise some form of ambiguity. In themselves they offer few clues as to their origins but simply propose openings onto thoughts about time and memory. They thus interfere in the spectator’s intimacy, in his or her own imagination by inviting them to design a story, to reveal the past of these characters. A multitude of fictions and stories are born of this fruitful relationship between artist and visitor.