Khaisman lives and works in Philadelphia. I had the opportunity to see his work at a gallery here a couple of years ago and I was immediately captivated by his ability to create luminous, thought-provoking pieces of art with such a commonplace medium (if I could, I would have taken one of them home with me).
Born in Kiev, Khaisman studied Art and Architecture at the Moscow Architectural Institute. While he ultimately found architecture to be too rigid a discipline, his work reflects an affinity for structure - constructing even as it deconstructs, each image reduced to its most essential, pixelated elements.
Khaisman is drawn to creating universal, archetypal images. His work is by turns graphic, compelling and mundane. His subjects run a wide gamut, from classical statuettes to elegant Louis XIV armchairs, and from film noir, to the Three Stooges. Sometimes there's a sense of action interrupted: something has just happened, or is just about to happen. Other times, there's a frame missing from the story, and we're left to fill in the blanks for ourselves.
1. Chair: $40,700 in 1991, 2007, packaging tape on Plexiglas, 48X36 (Gallery 5, image 6).
2. Portraits in Red: Duke Gallery, Wallingford Art Center, Philadelphia, 2009. (Gallery 1).
3. Frame_20: "I have you right where I wanted you," 2008, packing tape on backlit acrylic panel, 36x48. (Gallery 3, image 4).
4. Series Heads: Introduction Show, Moore College, Philadelphia, 2006. (Gallery 5).
5.The Stooge Study_3: 2010, packing tape on backlit acrylic panel, 36x48 in. (Gallery 7, image 6).
If the light box originals are priced beyond your reach, check out the limited edition 24"x30" prints available through the artist's website. (I think I may have to treat myself to one!)
Images: Mark Khaisman
Dirty Little Secrets of Tidy Families
Hillary & Michael's Refined Roost
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Nomade Express Slee...
My Staple Summer Cocktail Recipe: Campari & IPA Spritzer
Easy Pickle Recipe: Cucumber Kimchi Bites
These are really cool. There is a shop in downtown Denver (on Larimer, I think) that has an artist's interpretation of Khaisman's chairs done in tape on a large wall.
beautiful!!
What remarkable work. And what a beautifully written post.
The material he is using is archivally unstable, which means it will degrade faster than it can appreciate in value.
We have lost the art of connoisseurship so when we see something apparently new and glittery we react like toddlers with a new toy.
It may seem like an elitist view, but after a life in the arts I have seen novelties like this come and go- mostly go. They flame brightly for a bit- and then POOF they are gone.
Learn more about art- go to museums, really look and develop your knowledge and appreciation so shallow art like this won't so easily trick you.
I don't think short-lived necessarily equals shallow crap-- look at andy goldsworthy.
I think these show a remarkable amount of creativity and skill, and if developing a sense of artistic elitism is going to teach me that creativity is secondary to archival stability, well, count me out.
Impressive. Not archival, but I don't plan to live a thousand years, so I don't care. I'd love to witness the process -- does he start with a sketch underneath to guide the placement of the layers??
Kimbe,
I know in this country, knowledge and learning is equated with elitism.
Also, respect for the quality of your materials is the hallmark of a master.
I think it’s possible to be educated AND open to the experimental periphery. Connoisseurship can be a by-product of knowledge and learning, but it shouldn’t be the goal—a better goal would be a lifetime commitment to constant learning, thinking and absorbing, and a steadfast cultivation of creativity and curiosity. All of these require us to keep our minds and eyes open.
We can’t grow if we automatically reject anything and everything that diverges from strict adherence to traditional rules.
It is not a matter of rejection- when the new is criticicised, it it often assumed that it it is from rigidity.
We have in the 20th century rejected nothing, nothing at all- everything has been fodder for the great maw of contemporary art, there has been no strict adherence to contain anything- just the opposite.
A mere suggestion of craftmanshship or mastery releases the harpies of novelty.