Life and Work

Christian's sculptures were included in Documenta 5, when he was only nineteen years old, and he had his first one-person show at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

-Building:The present art centre was built in 1967 in Brutalist architecture by the architects Konrad Beckmann and Brockes. They used commercially available precast concrete for the construction work.-History:...

, in 1973. He was included again in Documenta 7 in 1982.

After his first inclusion in Documenta, in 1972, he went on to have one-person exhibitions at Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld (1978), Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf (1983), Sprengel Museum

Sprengel Museum

The Sprengel Museum in Hanover houses one of the most significant collections of modern art in Germany. It is located in a building designed by Peter and Ursula Trint and Dieter Quast , adjacent to the Maschsee...

, Hannover (1985, 1994), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Calais (1988), Tallinna Kunstihoone, Estonia (1998), and he was in shows at the Nationalmuseum of Modern Art

Modern art

Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...

, Tokyo, Museum Ludwig

Museum Ludwig

Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein....

, Cologne, Nationalgalerie, Berlin and National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul. He has also had one-person exhibitions in such galleries as Gallery m, Bochum (1979, 1986), Gallery Friedrich, Bern (1980, 1992), Gatodo Gallery, Tokyo (1986, 1988), Diane Brown Gallery, New York (1987), Elke Dröscher, Hamburg (1990), James Corcoran Gallery, Santa Monica (1992), Herbert Meyer-Ellinger, Frankfurt (1993), Shigeru Yokota Gallery, Tokyo (every year since 1990), Annina Nosei Gallery, New York (1999), Michael Haas Gallery, Berlin (2002), Gallery Löhrl, Mönchengladbach (2006) and Gallery Utermann, Dortmund (1993, 2009), among others. His work is included in many important public and private collections in Europe, Asia and America, including the Grothe Collection in Berlin and the Ströher Collection in Duisburg, with an one-person exhibition in 2010 at the Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art, Küppersmühle (Museum Küppersmühle

Museum Küppersmühle

Museum Küppersmühle is a Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art based Duisburg's Inner Harbour. It houses the Ströher Collection. It is part of the Duisburg: Town and Harbour section of the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail.-Architecture:...

).

Christian has lectured at Keio University

Keio University

,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

, Tokyo; Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi-Shi, Japan; National Art University

Art school

Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...

, Hangzhou, China; the National University

National university

A national university is generally a university created or run by a government, but which at the same time operates autonomously without direct oversight or control by the state. Some national universities are closely associated with national cultural or political aspirations...

, Seoul, Korea

Seoul

Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...

; and extensively in Europe and the United States. His sculptures and drawings were the subject of a major international exhibition, The Ways of the World, at the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, Germany, 2000, accompanied by a monograph on his work published by DuMont (Cologne, 2000). the June 2001 issue of Art in America

Art in America

Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...

, featured an article by Janet Koplos on his work .

Important book publications include Dorothée Bauerle-Willert, Mississippi (Tallinn, Estonia, 1998); 'Abraham David Christian, La Salle des Pieds Perdus': Drawing / Zeichnung (Edgewise Press, New York, April 1999); Abraham David Christian, Nebraska (Kulturzentrum Sinsteden, Rommerskirchen-Sinsteden, Germany, 2000); Klaus Gallwitz, Bronze Sculptures (Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2003). Another important monograph on his work was published by Kehrer in 2003, in conjunction with his museum exhibition, The Language of Man, at the Neues Museum

Neues Museum

The ' is a museum in Berlin, Germany, located to the north of the Altes Museum on Museum Island.It was built between 1843 and 1855 according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler, a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The museum was closed at the beginning of World War II in 1939, and was heavily...

 Weserburg Bremen and Von der Heydt-Museum

Von der Heydt Museum

Von der Heydt Museum is a museum in Wuppertal, Germany.The Von der Heydt Museum includes works by 19th and 20th century artists. The first of Pablo Picasso’s works that ever appeared in public was displayed here.-External links:*...

 Wuppertal in 2004, with essays by Thomas Deecke, Peter Friese, Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs and Richard Milazzo

Richard Milazzo

Richard Milazzo was the editor and co-publisher of Out of London Press in the 1970s. Among the books he edited were The Syntactic Revolution: Collected Writings of Abraham Lincoln Gillespie and the first English facsimile edition of Pontormo’s Diary...

. In 2006, Christian published "Along the Hudson", a book of drawings, with Tokyo Publishing House.

Christian has been described as an “international artist whose work cannot be confined to any one country or defined by any one culture. Geometrical and shape-of-life forms reference the traditions of Eastern, Western, African and American cultures, even as they remain perfectly unique unto themselves. His paper and bronze sculptures convene the spirits of Renaissance art

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 (Donatello and Michelangelo), the Classical abstract art

Abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

 of the avantgarde in the twentieth century (Giacometti, Brancusi, and David Smith

David Smith (sculptor)

David Roland Smith was an American Abstract Expressionist sculptor and painter, best known for creating large steel abstract geometric sculptures.-Biography:...

), the most (so-called) ‘primitive’ objects from the smallest villages in Africa, and the most (so-called) ‘refined’ goddess or Buddha from India, Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

, or Japan. It is work that is both irrepressible and restrained, libidinal and Minimal, fragile and, of late, monumental. Before the term ‘multicultural’ ever existed, Christian’s sculptures and drawings took for their most basic premises the ‘language [or languages] of man’ and the ‘ways of the world.’”

Christian lives and works in New York, Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 and Hayama, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

Literature

• Exhibition catalogue: documenta 5 Befragung der Realität – Bildwelten heute; Bd 1: (Information); Bd 2: (Exhibition catalogue); Kassel 1972
• Exhibition catalogue: documenta 7 Kassel ; Bd. 1: (Biographies of the artists); Bd. 2: (Exhibition catalogue); Kassel 1982 ISBN 3-920453-02-6
• Honisch, Dieter (Editor); Kunst in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland : 1945 - 1985 ; Exhibition catalogue: 'Kunst in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland : 1945 - 1985', Nationalgalerie Berlin 27.9.1985 bis 21.1.1986; Berlin 1985 ISBN 3-875841-58-1
• Milazzo, Richard (Editor); ABRAHAM DAVID CHRISTIAN, LA SALLE DES PIEDS PERDUS, ZEICHNUNG / DRAWING; New York, Paris, Turin, Louisville 1999 ISBN 1-893207-01-3
• Brockhaus, Christoph (Hrsg.); Abraham David Christian, die Wege der Welt: Exhibition catalogue, Abraham David Christian, die Wege der Welt, Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg 20. Februar bis 30. April 2000; Köln 2000 ISBN 3-7701-5051-1
• Friese, Peter (Hrsg.); Abraham David Christian - Die Sprache des Menschen; Exhibition catalogue: Abraham David Christian - Die Sprache des Menschen, Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, 16. November 2003 bis 29. Februar 2004, Von-der-Heydt-Museum Wuppertal, 16. März bis 18. Mai 2004; Heidelberg 2003 ISBN 3-936636-10-9
• Smerling, Walter (Herg.); ABRAHAM DAVID CHRISTIAN, THE WAY • DER WEG, Exhibition catalogue: ABRAHAM DAVID CHRISTIAN, THE WAY • DER WEG, MKM Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst Duisburg 11. Juni bis 29. August 2010, Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld/Leipzig/Berlin ISBN 978-3-86678-412-3

External links

• Artist's website