Dancing on the Edge of the Void
April 13 - May 5, 2012 (opening on Friday, April 13, from 5:00 - 9:00 pm) ART ON THE AVENUE GALLERY at 3808 Lancaster Avenue is privileged to present ROMAN COTOSMAN: DANCING ON THE EDGE OF THE VOID, a solo exhibition featuring selected drawings, reliefs, sculptures and collages from the Philadelphia years of this noteworthy abstract artist. Please join us for the opening on Friday, April 13, from 5:00 - 9:00 pm. The exhibit runs from April 13 to May 5 and the regular gallery hours will be Saturdays and Sundays, from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm or by appointment. Roman Cotosman’s oeuvre spans two continents and over 40 years of contemporary art. He considered himself an artist along the line of constructivist-concrete art, which he wanted to follow as far as his own limit permitted. His art is formally based on a geometry philosophically and spiritually charged. The transcendental, the timeless, the generative void, the play of chance in-form his art. Forms are simple and get simpler with time, distilled and purified, purged of anything non-essential. His works are usually without title, yet the series or cycles of works bear titles that hint to his theoretical, conceptual intentions (The Breaking of the Plastic Sign, Spatial interference, Aleatory Lines, Decentered Games, Rhythmic Void). Cotosman’s work has been widely exhibited in Europe, with major exhibits in Germany (Nurnberg, Munich, Karlsruhe, Beratzhausen), Spain (Bilbao) and Great Britain (Edinburgh, London). In 1995 he participated in the Venice Biennale, representing Romania. By now Roman Cotosman is an iconic figure of Romanian contemporary art, and much of his artwork has been returned to the country of his beginnings, where it has found its rightful place in the finest museums of Romania. In the United States, he devoted his time and energy to creating rather than showing his art. He exhibited in New York, Washington and Philadelphia. He was included in a major show at the Philadelphia Art Museum, curated by Ann Percy, Philadelphia Contemporary Drawings II, and the Museum acquired two of his pieces for its collection. With much of his work already enriching museum collections in Romania and elsewhere in Europe, Philadelphia is lucky to still have access to a significant number of his art pieces, generously made available to us by his wife, Cristina Cotosman. ART ON THE AVENUE is delighted to invite the art lovers of Philadelphia to view the works of art and complete them through their own interpretation. Paraphrasing a comment made by late art historian and curator, Kirk Varnedoe, in reference to abstract art, Cotosman’s art "dances on the knife edge of the void and beckons us to come along."
Roman Cotosman
"What I want to do with my art is to penetrate into the unknown, I want my art to have no content, in the conventional meaning of the word. My art is a plastic vision of perception which goes beyond the limits of reality, a kind of plastic echo or aura of the capacity of colors to act directly upon the senses of the viewer." — Roman Cotosman, 1995