Art and Architecture – Absalon

Absalon is an Israeli sculptor who moved to Paris in the later 1980s. During his career he constructed a number of 1:1 scale architectural models which were created as idealistic living units. Made of wood and painted white these models reveal and obsession with order, arrangement and containment, and are highly focused on geometric elements: circles, cylinders, squares and cubes. These “Cellules” sculptures were designed to be placed in various cities, thus providing the artist accommodation while he travelled. In 1993, Absalon exhibited a series of six “Cellules” in Paris. He described how these models fitted both to his body and to his mental space, but were also designed to allow movement for his body. These forms explored domestic architecture as a vehicle of mental and physical habituation. These “Cellules” provided a calm, control and protection atmosphere, while letting the imagination wonder. They merged the necessary with the utopian, and transformed everyday life into sublime order.