Haim Steinbach

Steinbach’s work sets forth new contexts for a wide range of objects that are handmade and mass-produced, ordinary as well as extraordinary, new and old. He has said that his work is “about vernacular, which is a common form of language: things that we make, express and produce” and that it is “not only about selecting and arranging objects of my own choice, but also presenting the objects chosen by others”. For Documenta IX (1992), for example, Steinbach transported the entire collection of objects that he found on the shelving in curator Jan Hoet’s office and rearranged them in a specifically conceived architectural structure in the work Display #30 – An Offering (collectibles of Jan Hoet).

Steinbach often refers to the structures he builds for the objects he presents as “framing devices”. The prototypical wedge-shaped shelf that he conceived for the presentation of the objects he selects is a structure employing a geometrical system based on three angles – 90, 50, and 40 degrees – of a triangle. The shelf is a device since it functions like a level or a musical instrument, and may be enlarged or reduced proportionally to the three angles of its cross-section, and in relation to the objects on it. Regarding colour, a term also used in music, a layer of plastic laminate skin may set the tone for an object when applied to the section on which it is placed.

Steinbach sets up a dialectic within his work between 'high' versus 'low' culture, the unique versus the multiple, the personal versus the universal. Furthermore, these dialectics function both in terms of objects and language since the work's titles as well as the objects themselves are 'found material'. The titles come from a wide range of sources such as texts, headings in magazines, or adverts. They are often statements and sayings that may be idiomatic, allegorical, proverbial or axiomatic. Steinbach also uses these texts as works in their own right. Presented in black vinyl on the wall in variable scales (large and small) these 'found objects' are presented exactly as they are, with both content and typeface unchanged since Steinbach considers both aspects to be integral to the wording as well as image of the final work.

Haim Steinbach was born in 1944 in Rehovot, Israel, and lives and works in New York. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute, New York in 1968 and a MFA from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut in 1973. Steinbach has had solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020); Museion, Bolzano, Italy (2019); Museum Kurhaus, Kleve, Germany (2018); Magasin III Museum and Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Israel (2018); The Menil Collection, Houston (2014); Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland (2014); Serpentine Gallery, London (2014); CCS Bard Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale on Hudson, New York (2013); The Artist’s Institute, New York (2012); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2000); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2000); Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna (1997); Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy (1995); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1993); Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (1992); and CAPC musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux, France (1988).

His work has been included in group exhibitions at UCCA Beijing (2022); Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project, Shanghai (2021); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2021); Kanal - Centre Pompidou, Brussels (2021, 2020); Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Spain (2019); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2018); WIELS, Brussels (2018); Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy (2017); Jewish Museum, New York (2016); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2015); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); La Triennale, Paris (2012); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2012); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (2011); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2010); Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, France (2009); Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent (2008); Serpentine Gallery, London (2006); Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Switzerland (2005); New Museum, New York (2005); The Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2004); Tate Liverpool, UK (2002); La Biennale de Lyon, France (2000); 47th Venice Biennale (1997); Documenta 9, Kassel, Germany (1992); 9th Biennale of Sydney (1992); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1990); and Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1988).