Joshua Neustein - Critical Mass III, 1992

Joshua Neustein
Critical Mass III (Carbon Series), 1992
Mixed media with carbon paper
Hand signed, titled and dated in graphite pencil on the front
Unique
Other works from Polish-born Neustein's Carbon Series are in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. According to the Museum:
"Joshua Neustein’s Carbon Series drawings originate in childhood memories of the darkness, shadows, and brief flickers of light glimpsed while living in basements during World War II. Rather than representing such memories, however, Neustein has evoked the workings of memory itself. He took carbon sets—pieces of letterhead interspersed with carbon paper for the purpose of making copies—and folded, incised, and tore them. As a result, he explained, "the image is ‘unhinged’ from the material surface and circulates in unframed space, between parts of one pictorial plane or transferred between several pictorial planes." Neustein’s use of a common office product intended for the replication of documents draws upon the Duchampian tradition of the readymade but is lent added poignancy by the carbon set’s obsolescence in a world of photocopy machines and computers."
-Courtesy Metropolitan Museum

The present work is framed in a vintage wood frame under UV plexiglass. Measurements:
Framed:
14 inches (vertical) by 15 inches (horizontal) by 1.25 inches
Artwork:
7.25 inches (vertical) by 8.5 inches (horizontal)

Biography:
Polish-born Joshua Neustein is an artist who has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, represented Israel in the Venice Biennale, and participated in To the Ends of the Earth at MOCA L.A. His work appears in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney Museum. He has had solo shows at Albright Knox, Israel Museum, Rose Art Museum, and SECCA North Carolina.
-NY Institute for the Humanities: