Michael Gitlin (born 1943 in Cape Town, South Africa) is a contemporary painter and sculptor.
Works in Israel and the US and lives in New York.

Michael Gitlin's family emigrated from South Africa to Israel in 1948.
Gitlin received his BA in English Literature and Art History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1967).
He simultaneously studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, graduating in 1967. Gitlin moved to New York City in 1970 and received an MFA from Pratt Institute (1972).
His first museum show was at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1977. That same year, his work was exhibited at the Documenta in Kassel, Germany.
Gitlin was represented by the Schmela Gallery in Düsseldorf and works of his were acquired by such institutions as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Gugghenheim Museum in New York.
In the 1980s, Gitlin taught sculpture at the Parsons School of Design and Columbia University in New York, the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, and the University of California in Davis.

Gitlin's one-person museum shows have included: the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1977); the ICC Antwerp (1980); Exit Art, New York (1985); Kunstraum Munchen (1986); Bonn Kunstverein (1988); Kunsthalle Mannheim (1989); Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery (1989); Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (1991). Gitlin is a member of the generation of Post-Minimalist artists working in Manhattan and Europe in the early 1970s that included Gordon Matta-Clark, Benni Efrat, Joel Shapiro, Joshua Neustein, Robert Grosvenor, Nahum Tevet, and Ulrich Rückriem, among others.

Work

Gitlin's work can be characterized as abstract and reductive. He began his career working three-dimensionally, first with paper and later with wood, using paper as a medium rather than a support. His sculptures are mostly wall pieces, which depend on architecture for their physical and contextual support.
In a 1996 catalogue for a show at Katrin Rabus Gallery in Bremen, Germany, Barry Schwabsky describes Gitlin's work as "characterized above all by its restlessness [...]. The object in crisis – for Gitlin at least, and perhaps only for him, such is the risk of the artist – implicates the subject of sculpture more than its means. For the sculptor, there is the object and there is the space it inhabits, and these must have a determinate relationship. This relationship is perhaps the true subject of the work."

Gitlin uses an approach similar to that of Joshua Neustein in the field of sculpture starting from 1973-1974. In his work, he uses wooden boards which he dismantles with his hands into units that require the viewer to recreate in his imagination the shape of the original board. The working principle that guided him is to preserve the material while changing its formal organization. It moves cut parts, unfolds them, and replaces them.
His works have an expressive dimension due to their being cleaved into their various parts by means of ax blows, just as Neustein's works have a lyrical-poetic character, created by the tearing of the paper which added to them a touch of unalienated sensitivity.

In recent years, Gitlin has worked with steel wool, copper wire, foam, and black spandex. Drawing too has always been a demanding part of Gitlin's project.

Education

1963-67 Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, graduate
1964-67 Hebrew University, Jerusalem, BA, Art History, English Literature
1970-72 Pratt Institute, New York City, USA, M.F.A.

Teaching

1971-72 Pratt Institute, New York City, USA
1972 Haifa Univerrsity, Haifa
1973-74 The New School, New York City, USA
1976-77 Parsons School of Design, New York City, USA, Sculpture
1977-78 Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Sculpture
1981-84 Parsons School of Design, New York City, USA
1981-85 Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem
1987 Columbia University, New York City, USA, Sculpture
1988 University of California, Davis, California USA, Sculpture
2000, 2005 Vermont Studio School, Johnson, Vermont, USA

Awards and Prizes

1984-85, Fellowship (Sculpture), National Endowment for the Arts, USA
1987–88, Fellowship (Sculpture and Drawing), The Dr. Georg and Josi Guggenheim Foundation
1988 August St. Gaudens Memorial Fellowship
1989 Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1991 Grant, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York
2000 George and Janet Jaffin Prize for Excellence in Plastic Arts, America-Israel Cultural Foundation
2005 Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), New York.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021 – Michael Gitlin: Compressions, Sean Scully Studio, New York
2017 – Michael Gitlin: 40 years apart, Gordon gallery, Tel Aviv
2014 – Michael Gitlin: 16 Works, Petach Tikva Museum of Art 2011 – Michael Gitlin: Works from the 70's, Henrique Faria Fine Art, New York, USA
2011 – Schüppenhauer Galerie + Projekte, Köln, Germany
2003 – Unconventional Three-Dimensions, Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, USA
2001 – Schüppenhauer Galerie + Projekte, Köln, Germany 1999 – N&N Aman Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel 1999 – Cornelissen Gallery, Schlangebad/Georgenborn, Germany 1998 – Stark Gallery, New York, USA 1997 – Rabus Gallery, Bremen, Germany 1994 – Primo Piano Gallery, Rome, Italy-Art Affairs Gallery, Amsterdam 1992 – Stark Gallery, New York, USA-Rabus Gallery, Bremen, Germany 1992 – Schüppenhauer Gallery, Köln, Germany 1991 – Michael Gitlin , MuHKA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Antwerp, Belgium
1990 – Michael Gitlin, 1982–1989, Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, USA, Curator: Elaine King
1989 – Michael Gitlin, Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Germany, Curator: Jochen Kronjäger
1988 – Broken Infinity, 1986–1988, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany, Curator: Annelie Pohlen
1988 – John Davis Gallery, New York, USA-Stark Gallery, New York, USA
1988 – Artifact Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel
1986 – Nostalgia, Kunstforum der Städtischen Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany, Curator: Helmut Friedel
1986 – Temporary Shelters, John Davis Gallery, New York 1986 – Sculpture and Drawings, Kunstraum, Munich, Germany, Curator: Christine Tacke
1985 – Michael Gitlin Sculpture and Drawings 1982–85, Exit Art, New York, USA, Curator: Jeanette Ingberman
1985 – Emmerich-Baumann Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland 1984 – Stampa Gallery, Basel, Switzerland 1981 – Schmela Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany 1981 – Stampa Gallery, Basel, Switzerland 1980 – Equilibrium, I.C.C., Antwerp, Belgium, Curator: Florent Bex
1980 – Michael Gitlin: Works: 1974–80, Städtische Galerie, Erlangen, Germany (traveled to Kunstverein, Ingolstadt, Germany)
1979 – Schellmann and Klüser Gallery, Munich, Germany
1978 – Schmela Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany-Primo Piano Gallery, Rome, Italy
1978 – Swart Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands-Stampa Gallery, Basel, Switzerland
1977 – Michael Gitlin: Works: 1974–77, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel, Curator: Yona Fischer
1977 – Swart Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
1976 – Schmela Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany-Stampa Gallery, Basel, Switzerland
1976 – O.K. Harris Gallery, New York, USA
1975 – Michael Gitlin: 4 x 8 Series, O.K. Harris Gallery, New York

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013 – Nach der Sprache (After Language), Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Germany
2009 – New York in Amsterdam: Louise Bourgeois, John Coplans, Joel Fisher, Michael Gitlin, Art Affairs Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland
2008 – Minimal and Conceptual Art in Europe from the Helga and Walther Lauffs Collection, David Zwirner Gallery, New York, US 2008 – The Boundaries of Language: Perspectives on Israeli Art of the Seventies, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel, Curator: Mordechai Omer
2006 – Marl Sculpture Museum, Marl, Germany 2001 – Sculpture, Stark Gallery, New York 2000 – The End: An Independent Vision of Contemporary Culture: 1982–2000, Exit Art, New York, Curators: Papo Colo and Jeanette Ingberman
1998 – Equivalences, Art Affairs Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands
1995 – Critical Mass, Yale University Art Gallery (Traveled to "The Mac"– the Dallas Artists' Research & Exhibition, New Haven, Connecticut, USA), Curator: Charles Long 1994 – Prints of Darkness, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
1994 – Routes of Wandering, The Israel Museum, Israel, Jerusalem, Curator: Sarit Shapira
1990 – Scultura in America, 2 Biennale Internazionale di Scultura Contemporanea 1990, Circolo la Scaletta, Matera, Italy
1989 – In The Shadow Of Conflict: Israeli Art 1980-1989, The Jewish Museum, New York. Curator: Susan Tumarkin Goodman
1988 – Innovations in Sculpture 1985–1988, Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA. Curator: Ellen O'Donnel
1988 – Contemporary Syntax: Structure and Geometry, Robeson Center Gallery, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
1988 – Ironic Abstraction, University of Southern Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
1987 – Space Framed IV, Gund Hall Gallery, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Curator: Margaret Reeve
1987 – Drawings From The Eighties, Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh. Curator: Elaine King
1986 – SkulpturSein, Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf, Germany, Curator: Harald Szeeman and Jürgen Harten
1985 – Vom Zeichnen 1960–1985, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany (Traveled to the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, and Kasseler Kunstverein)
1985 – Art In Israel 1906-1985, Koninklijk Museum, voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, Belgium
1984 – 1983-1984, Two Years Israeli Art. Qualities Accumulated. Tel Aviv Museum, Israel
1978 – Daniel Templon Gallery, Paris, France-Drawings from New York, Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur, Switzerland
1977 – Documenta 6, Kassel, Germany, Curator: Manfred Schneckenburger

VIDEOS

2014 – Michael Gitlin: 16 Works, Petach Tikva Museum of Art2014

BOOKS

1991 – MoMA Artist’s Original Book: Michael Gitlin: Point of Departure. Book of eight etchings, (Santa Monica: Edition Jacob Samuel, 1991)

SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

British Museum, London
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Haifa Museum of Modern Art, Haifa, Israel
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
Leopold Hoesch Museum, Duren, Germany
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Jewish Museum, New York
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany
Kunstverein Ingolstadt, Ingolstadt, Germany
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Marl Sculpture Museum, Marl, Germany
MUSMA, Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, Matera, Italy
Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Germany
MOMA Museum of Modern Art, New York
New York Public Library, New York
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Rijksmuseum, Kröeller – Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
Städtische Galerie, Erlangen, Germany
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Wilhelm-Hack- Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany
Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg, Germany
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Ludwig Museum, Köln, Germany
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany

Payment Methods: Bank Cheque, PayPal. If you wish to send a personal cheque, please note that the item will not be shipped until the cheque clears.

Shipping&Handling: All items are sent through registered mail or by E.M.S. Fast delivery service (up to 3-4 business days), depends on the weight and measures of the purchased item. You may add insurance for the item with an additional fee. Please e-mail us for other shipping methods.

In case that the frame includes a glass, the item will be shipped without the glass in order to prevent any damage to the artwork caused by broken glass: be aware that such kind of a damage is not covered by the insurance!

Terms of Auction: All sales are final, please only bid if you intend to pay. Refunds will be accepted only if the item is not as described in the auction. ISRAELI BUYERS MUST ADD 17% V.A.T. TO THE FINAL PRICE.

Artshik provides full assurance that all items sold are exactly as described! We guarantee all items we sell are 100% authentic!