Artist Statement
Bernard Kirschenbaum (1924 - 2016) was an architect and sculptor who created structures that engaged with, and transformed, their surroundings. His work brings observers into this collaboration between an artwork and the space around it. "My work closely relates people to the sculpture. It invites people to place themselves in warping spaces; to change their height and therefore their perspective; to put themselves in an enclosing color environment; or be surrounded by patterns.” Kirschenbaum was an accomplished geometrician, designing and building the world’s first geodesic dome residence and creating sculptures that celebrate two- and three-dimensional geometric shapes and arrangements. He discovered an elegant tessellation that had never been seen in human history and used it in his sculptures. Kirschenbaum also explored the beauty evident in random patterns and surfaces. An early adopter of computer technology, he wrote his own programming to automatically randomize the size, sidedness, orientation, and placement of geometric shapes. In a nod to the beauty of random patterns in nature, he often created uniformly irregular surfaces on his sculptures, such as the powdery red-brown patinas of rusted steel, the scatter of pigment chips in urethane, and spots of white against a blue enamel background.
CV
EDUCATION
1942-3 Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (Horticulture)
1943-6 U.S. Army
1946-7 Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (Theatre Arts)
1948-50 Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (Architecture)
1950-52 Institute of Design, Chicago, IL (Architecture)
TEACHING
1986-92 Swedish Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm, Sweden
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Self Portrait, Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY (July 26 – August 24)
2018-19 Ayn Foundation presents: Bernard Kirschenbaum, Mana Contemporary,
Jersey City, NJ
2018 Bernard Kirschenbaum, Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY (Sept. 08 –
Oct. 20)
2017 Bernard Kirschenbaum, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden
(May 19 – June 22)
1996 Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden
1991 Art Against Aids, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden (August 17)
1984 Malmö Kunsthall, Malmö, Sweden
1981 Galerie Aronowitsch, Stockholm, Sweden
1980 Galleriet, Lund, Sweden
Galerie Nordenhake, Malmö, Sweden
Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, NY
1979 Sculpture Now, Inc., New York, NY
1978 Wade Gallery, Washington, DC
1977 Sculpture Now, Inc., New York, NY
1976 Sculpture Now, Inc., New York, NY
1975 112 Greene Street Gallery, New York, NY
1973 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
112 Greene Street Gallery, New York, NY
1972 Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY
1969 Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY
1966 Park Place Gallery, New York, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018-19 Flat Out: Works on Paper, 1960–2000, Mana Contemporary, Jersey City,
NJ (Oct. 14 – April 01)
2018 Different Shapes, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY
(May 26 – June 24)
2016 Grayscale, Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY (June 24 – August 16)
2008 Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery Group in 1960s New York,
The Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Agents, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden (July 09 – August 24)
2004 Multiplex, Skulpturen Hus, Stockholm, Sweden
1984 Malmö Kunsthall, Malmö, Sweden
Varieties of Sculptural Ideas, Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, NY
1983 Iron Cast, Pratt Manhattan Center Gallery, New York, NY
Praesentation, Galerie Norballe, Copenhagen, Denmark
ARS 83, The Helsinki Ateneum, Helsinki, Finland
Nocturn, Siegel Contemporary Art, New York, NY
New York i Linköping, Östergötlands läns museum, Linköping, Sweden
Artists for Nuclear Disarmament, Municipal Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
1982 Drawings/Prints/Photographs, Frank Marino Gallery, New York, NY
Englund Kirschenbaum Ohlin, Modern Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
1981 Selections from Moderna Museet, Palais Des Beaux Arts, Brussels,
Belgium
Sculpture Now, Galerie Nordenhake, Malmö, Sweden
1980 Less is More, Galerie Nordenhake, Malmö, Sweden
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
1979 Large Works, Galleri Engström, Stockholm, Sweden
1978 Indoor/Outdoor Sculpture Show, P.S. 1, Queens, NY
1977 Collection in Progress, Moore College of Art Gallery, Philadelphia,
PA
1976 Sculptors Drawings, Fine Arts Building, New York, NY
Rooms, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY
1975 4 Sculptors, Lehman College, New York, NY
Sculpture Now, Inc., New York, NY
1974 Sculpture in the Park, Van Saun Park, Paramus, NJ
Anarchitecture, 112 Greene Street Gallery, New York, NY
1973 Sculpture in the Fields, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY
112 Greene Street Gallery, New York, NY
1972 Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis,
IN
1971 Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY
Sculpture in the Park, Van Saun Park, Paramus, NJ
1970 Referendum ’70, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY
Painting and Sculpture Today, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis,
IN
Drawings, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
1969 Books Boxes and Things, The Jewish Museum, New York, NY
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY
1968 The Door, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
Cool Art – Abstraction Today, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ
Park Place Gallery, M.I.T. Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
1967 Serial Art, Finch College Museum, New York, NY
Sculpture in Environment, Central Park, New York, NY
1966 Park Place Gallery, New York, NY
AWARDS
1981 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
1976 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Sculpture
1975 New York State Creative Arts Public Service Grant
1973 Guggenheim Fellowship in Sculpture
PUBLIC WORKS
2015 Crazy Column, Seligmann Center for the Arts, Sugar Loaf, NY
2004 Skulpturen Hus exhibition Multiplex at the former factory of Alfred
Nobel in Stockholm, Sweden
1987 Spiral, Malmo, Sweden
1983 Yksitoista [Arc For Helsinki], Helsinki, Finland
1978 Way Four and Twist for Max, Lynden Sculpture Center, Milwaukee, WI
1954 Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line Domes for the US Government,
later included in the garden of The Museum of Modern Art, NY & at the
Pompidou Center, Paris
