Grisha Bruskin

Grisha Bruskin: Life Is Everywhere, Napoli: Palace Editions, 2001

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. These four works are framed together and are in excellent condition. They are stretched, clean and seem to be unrestored. There are very slight scuffs around the edges of the two black paintings which could be retouched. However, in general the condition is excellent.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

At the 1988 Sotheby's auction in Moscow—the first of its kind in Russia—Grisha Bruskin's entries garnered around one million dollars; one lot went for over $416,000. That same year, the artist emigrated to the United States, where he has become one of the most successful and widely exhibited Russian émigré artists. For the English architect Sir Norman Foster's renovation of the Berlin Reichstag, three artists were invited to contribute works, one each from France, the United States, and Russia. Bruskin was chosen to represent Russia.

In both the Soviet Union and the United States, he has explored two themes—the myths of Judaism and socialism, the former in a continuing series entitled Alefbet and the latter in Fundamental Lexicon. Bruskin has also made sculptures of figures similar to those in these two painting series.

Metamorphosis, based loosely on kabbalistic thought, is divided into four parts. These refer to the four letters of God's name in Hebrew; the four living creatures described in the vision of Ezekiel—man, lion, bull, eagle; the four keys to the Garden of Eden; and the four elements—fire, air, earth, and water. The two dominating colors, red and black, represent Creation and Nothingness, respectively. The textual passages, taken from a Hasidic book, symbolize the Jewish idea of the world as a Book (the Bible) and the Book as the world, an enigma that one can spend one's life decoding.

The numbers in the upper left are keys to the world's mysteries and also encompass Hebrew letters, each of which has a numerical equivalent. The ten profiles in the lower right correspond to the ten sephirot, the ten interrelated emanations of God. The mysterious figures include, for example, a crocodilian form that represents the demon of slavery. Bruskin does not provide narrative links between the figures and texts. Instead, he invites the viewer to interpret each "page" in a personal way, as if each page is a fragment, "a spark of light," in kabbalistic terms, waiting to be deciphered, thus recovering its content and, by extension, a sense of harmony in the world. These works, then, do not so much interpret kabbalistic passages as exist in their auras.