Nahum Tevet
Born 1946, Kibbutz Mesilot, Israel
Lives and works in Tel Aviv

Nahum Tevet’s A Page from a Catalogue is informed by the artist’s Israeli heritage. Tevet was raised on a kibbutz, a social model for living that depends upon the interaction of all its members to achieve unified social and economic goals. Similarly, this sculpture is made of multiple elements that create a single, interdependent compositional whole. Just as Tevet’s sculpture appears vulnerable in its seemingly unsteady construction, today the kibbutz system is subject to socioeconomic and political strains. Tevet’s aesthetic vocabulary is indebted to Minimalism’s stripped-down geometric structures and its use of industrial materials. Further, the scale shifts that result from the artist’s use of objects of diverse shape and size cause a related instability in the viewer, who visually negotiates the work when viewing or circulating around it.

Nahum Tevet, A Page from a Catalogue, 1998 (installation view)

Nahum Tevet, A Page from a Catalogue, 1998 (installation view detail)

Nahum Tevet responds to questions in the Artists of the Week section of this site.

Nahum Tevet’s sculptures and installations have been exhibited for over twenty-five years. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including documenta 8, Kassel, and Similia/ Dissimilia, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1987); Life Size: A Sense of the Real in Recent Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1990); Art in Israel Today, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan (1991); XXII Bienal de São Paulo (1994); Painting-The Extended Field, Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö, and Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall (1996-97); Bienale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon and ARKEN, Museum for Modern Kunst, Copenhagen (1997); The Seventies in Israeli Art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (1988); and This Is Not a Ready Made, Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1999). Tevet has had solo shows in galleries in Jerusalem, Düsseldorf, Paris, New York, Zurich, and Tel Aviv, including Dvir Gallery (1998). Solo museum shows include Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1976, 1984); Kunsthalle Mannheim (1986); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (1991); Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna (1997); and Chapelle des Jésuites, Nîmes (1998).

Education
1980-86 Bezazel Academy of Art, Jerusalem

Selected Further Reading
Tevet, Nahum, Sarah Breitberg-Semel, and Ohad Meromi. “How Much Wealth Can Originate from this Reductionism: A Conversation with Nahum Tevet.” Studio Israeli Art Magazine 91 (March 1998): 20-34.

Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, Austria. Nahum Tevet (1997). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Lóránd Hegyi, Sarit Shapira, and Eli Friedlander.

Israeli Society for Culture and the Arts, XXII International Biennial of São Paulo, Brazil. Black Holes: The White Locus (1994). Exhibition catalogue, text by Sarit Shapira.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel. Nahum Tevet: Painting Lessons, Sculptures 1984-1990 (1991). Exhibition catalogue, texts by Yona Fischer, Joshua Decter, Yonah Foncé, and Ido Bar-El.

Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany. Nahum Tevet (1986). Exhibition catalogue, text by Wolfgang Becker.

Selected Links
www.geocities.com/motorcity/show/7712/tevet.html