Nicko RUBINSTEIN

MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS2004 : « Souvenirs d’Afrique », Musée de Blois, France
2001 : « Trans zoo express », Musée A.G. Poulain, Vernon, France
1997 : « Best’hier pour bêtes de demain », Musée de Blois, France

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Belgium : Brussels (Galerie Salvador)
France : Aix-en-Provence (Espace Ste Catherine de Sienne) ; Arles (Chapelle des Jésuites) ; Aubagne (Salle du Bras d’Or) ; Digne (Réserve Géologique des Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) ; Evreux (Maison des Arts) ; Hyères (Tour des Templiers) ; La Seyne sur Mer (Villa Tamaris) ; Lyon (Galerie Georges Verney-Carron, Galerie Animal) ; Manosque (Fondation Carzou) ;  Marseille (Galerie Porte Avion, Espace l’Autre Côté, Espace Ecureuil, Cabinet Raynal-Barbarit) ; Nantes (Le Lieu Unique) ; Paris (Galerie Arcturus) ; Privas (Galerie d’exposition du Théatre de Privas) ; Saint Cyr sur Mer (Centre d’Art Sébastien) ; Saint Rémy de Provence (Bibliothèque Joseph Roumanille) ; Toulouse (Galerie Sollertis)
Netherlands : Amsterdam (Galerie Hoopman)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Belgium : Brussels (Galerie Salvador, Arthus Gallery) ; Kluisbergen (Green House Gallery) ; Torhout (Kasteel d’Aertrycke, Cultureel Centrum de Bouckerer)
France : Aix-en-Provence (Opus Gallery) ; Arles (Espace Van Gogh) ; Avignon (Galerie Marina) ; Cailar (Centre d’art) ; Forcalquier (Galerie Luba) ; Issy les Moulineaux (Musée de la Carte à Jouer) ; Istres (Centre Intercommunal d’Art Contemporain) ; La Seyne sur Mer (Villa Tamaris) ; L’Isle sur la Sorgue (Galerie Philippe Boidet) ; Lodève (Musée de Lodève) ; Marseille (Château Borely, Galerie David Pluskwa Art Contemporain, Pavillon M, Musée Regards de Provence,  Villa Massalia, Galerie Le Cargo, Galerie Le Laboratoire, Docks Sud, Galerie Park’Art, Galerie de l’association Rivages) ; Paris (Musée Maillol, Espace CO2, Galerie Arcturus, L’Atelier des Artistes, Galerie Sollertis, Galerie Artima, Couvent des Cordeliers, Galerie Thierry Salvador) ; Saint Cyr sur Mer (Centre d’Art Sébastien) ; Saint Tropez (Galerie Petitjean) ; Tarascon (Château de Tarscon, Musée Imaginaire du Moyen Age) ; Toulouse (Lieu Commun) ; Villeneuve les Avignon (Abbaye Saint André)
Netherlands : Amsterdam (Galerie Hoopman) ; The Hague (Galerie De Twee Pawnen)

ART FAIRS
South Korea : Biennial of Daejeon, Daejeon
France : FIAC, Paris ; Biennale d’art Contemporain, Brie Comte Robert ; Salon du Dessin Contemporain, Paris ; Salon de printemps, Lyon ; Salon des artistes Naturalistes, Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris ; Deuxième biennale de la sculpture animalière, Rambouillet ; Salon des indépendants, Rillieux la Pape ; Biennale des Artistes, Manosque ; Biennale de l’Union Méditerranéenne pour l’Art Moderne, Nice

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Musée A. G. Poulain, Vernon, France ; Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle , Paris, France ; Collège Sylvain Menu, Marseille, France

PRIZES
2001: Manosque – Awards – Biennale des Artistes de Manosque et de la Région
1998 : Paris –  Sculpture Prize- Salon des Naturalistes – Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle
1996: Lyon – Youth Prize- Salon de Printemps

BIBLIOGRAPHY
2007 : « Mickey is also a rat » Exhibition catalog ; « D’un texte à l’autre », François Bazzoli, Papiers Libres
2006 : « Traces » Exhibition catalog ; « Mickey, souffre-douleur de Nicko », François Coste et Nicko Rubinstein, Art Sud
2003 : « Souvenir d’Afrique » Exhibition catalog
2000 :  « 5 ou le taureau et les cardinaux », Editions Images en manœuvre
1995 : « Nicko » Exhibition catalog

It is always moving to discover a new work.  What strikes one when seeing Nicko’s work for the first time is his obsession with animals.  It is without a doubt because this geologist turned sculptor learned to read in the grounds of world history, of man and animal, that from then on he no longer separated them even in his dreams.  As, for example, in this inextricable stack of books and fossilized rhinoceroses can be found a universal cultural pain.

If he has chosen sculpture rather than painting, it is, it seems, because he searches to created, between the work and the visitor, a physical relationship quasi animalistic that precedes emotion:  one approaches the object, takes it in, “senses” it, one can turn around it.  It is in this manner that the work is met.

Nicko’s Noah’s Ark holds various monsters, half machine and half animal, that make us cross over time and touch this otherness at close proximity.

Rhino-X; the rhinoceros emerging from glass is like a renaissance after an indeterminable hibernation.  The rigged kangaroo’s jump makes me think, through no will of my own, of the young Southern children made amputees by war and given prosthetics by Handicap International.  And the teeth in the road suggest the unknown limits of technological progress; there is nothing to stop us from imagining that a shark carries the car…

Nothing can be said in place of what Nicko desires to express, but for all that, each of his sculptures forces us to consider them as if they had emerged from our own lives.  They all seem to be a part of a real universe.  That of the artist.

Catherine TASCA, Minister of Communication and Culture

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The explored animal is a reflection of our passions, our moods, our anguish, our pain, and our joys.  An animal carries within himself the spiritual dimension of the universal, where he becomes completely indistinguishable from man.

It is for this reason that I give privilege to animal sculptures.

Every myth uses animals to talk about humanity.

The representation of the evangelists is a good example:

Mathew – the angel/man, Luke – the bull, Mark, the lion, and John – the eagle.

I want to create a fantastic bestiality where the transformed and rejected animals are the bearers of messages.  I wish to bring to the animal representations a new force which paradoxically gives humanity its dimension, and to produce works which are easily accessible, playful, but open to the imagination and to symbols.

My works are cut-outs, associations, outbursts, transformations, juxtapositions of representative styles, a use of diverse materials… I cut out that which is necessary; I associate the indivisible, to bring a dose of fantasy, of a realistic unreality.  A reflection on the complexity of nature and the relations that are fostered between us: an animal taken apart and then put together again haphazardly, but there is also structure, mechanics, movement, energy, and entropy.
My sculptures represent more than hybrid animals and reconstructions, they are stories open to the imagination.  The desire to give back meaning drives me to intimately link and support the animals in a place penetrated by information and symbols.

These “tampered” animals, transformed, half-real and half-imaginary, obeying scientific precision and realism; they are a mix of flesh, skeleton, and construction.  It’s a manner of displaying with a sense of humour the mysteries of life and death, and of exposing the existential duality that fascinates us.  It’s the will to give each person the desire to meditate upon the role and function of animals in our society:  animal-symbolism, animal-imagery…in short, animals.

Nicko RUBINSTEIN