ODED HALAHMY
Baghdad ♥ Jerusalem ♥ New York ♥
EXILE IS HOME
I had always dreamed of America but found it even bigger and more beautiful than in my dreams. I loved it. I was really moved by America. I made several brief visits and then, in January 1970, I came to New York City with my students from the Ontario College of Art. I wanted to show them the budding art world downtown, in today’s Soho. It was a time when Clement Greenberg was promoting the abstract expressionist: Jackson Pollack, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and the generation of sculptors like David Smith and Anthony Caro, one of my teachers in London. In Contrast the new Pop Art movement: Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and others. In Soho there was experimental work being done in video, performance art, and earthworks. I like the museums, The MET, MOMA, Guggenheim, and The Whitney. I love New York. There was a spirit of playfulness, but it was serious too. I found New York City exciting and inspirational, tolerant of a variety of ideas, styles, and forms of art. I loved it all. I was invited to be a guest artist and lecturer at the Cooper Union School of Art and to be an artist-in-residence at Parson’s School of Design. In March 1971, I moved to New York City and found my Soho loft. There were only a few artists there. It was beginning to develop into and artist quarter. I was one of the pioneers when I moved downtown, south of Houston Street. At the time Soho was in a transition period and still consisted primarily of warehouse and manufacturing companies. Because of the availability of large spaces, artists were also beginning to move in, and exhibit paintings and sculptures considered too large and too innovation for uptown galleries. America was like nowhere else. Whenever I needed materials, I always found them. Without friends or money and with all the problems of settling in a foreign land once more, I went in search of my material. Dumpsters were always full of remnants from factories and renovations: old furniture, scrap metals, wood, paper, and other materials for my work. In my loft I began to fulfill my visions of making large-scale sculptures. I made pieces directly on the floor, with no formal base. The floor space was like a landscape. I used wood, cardboard, and other found materials. The only limit was the space itself, over 4,000 square feet with a nine-foot ceiling and a large freight elevator. I did not know what I would do with these large sculptures. I just had fun making them. I was playing with the materials, moving and dancing with the forms, like a child. What a joy! In a way, space produced the art. Out of nothingness, creativity emerged. People came. My loft was a mecca for friends who often stayed over. It was all happening in my loft: making art, making love, sharing everything I had. My friends became my family: a little like kibbutz. The following five sculptures are original, full scale mock-ups made in wood and other recycled materials. I speak with my sculptures. I live with them, walk around them, see them from all angles. I edit them and play with colors. For me, sculptural movement is like performance without text. I dance feelings without choreography like playing music without notes. I envision the art. Only when I feel sure that the work is right, I make the sculpture in lasting materials. These five sculptures were made in aluminum sheet metal. After they were constructed, they were painted with many coats of color. The color serves to reinforce character. It is a natural outgrowth of the process, a poetic suggestion. The finished sculpture has a life of its own. These sculptures, Talisman, Sight, Nimrod, Galil, and Sky Window are among the first that I made in America and I am very proud that they were very well received. After being exhibited at Louis K. Meisel Gallery the work was shown at Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In 1975 as part of the Bicentennial tribute they were placed in front of the United States Federal Building in New York City. It took a few more years for the sculptures to arrive at their permanent homes. Oded Halahmy Halahmy’s work bears the imprint of these three worlds (Baghdad, Jerusalem and New York). His Dynamic, engaging sculptures originate in modernist concerns, while paying homage to the art of the ancient near east and his personal philosophy of peace and harmony. Halahmy’s lyrical abstract sculptures reference to his native landscape and reflect the qualities of the hieratic symbols of Mesopotamian sculpture. The works dance, while making reference to palm trees, gates, pomegranates, and the moon. He sees these universal symbols – the palm representing righteousness and growth and the pomegranate symbolizing love and fertility. Ultimately the balance and beauty inherent in these dynamic forms merge as expressions of Halahmy’s dedication to peace in the world. If there is one single idea that runs through Halahmy’s work, it is the ideal of peace and harmony, virtues that are sadly absent at the moment in all three of his homelands. At a time when chaos seems in danger of triumphing over all efforts to maintain a humane order, he reminds us that there is a place where serenity is still possible. Eleanor HeartneyHomelands: Baghdad-Jerusalem – New YorkODED HALAHMY (C’HEBA’ZAH)
Born in Baghdad, Iraq, 1938 Immigrated to Israel,1951.
Studied at St. Martin’s School of Art, London, England,1966-68.
Moved to Toronto, Canada,1969.
Moved to New York City, U.S.A.,1971.
Currently living in New York City and Old Jaffa, Israel.
TEACHING
Ontario College of Art, Toronto, Canada, 1969-70.
Parsons School of Design, New York, New York,
1975-77.
VISITING ARTIST
Cooper Union Art School, New York University, New York, 1971.
Studio School New School for Social Research, New York, New York, 1971-1974.
SELECTED MUSEUM AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York.
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.
Tel Aviv Museum, Israel.
The Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, New York.
The Jewish Museum, New York, New York.
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Grey Art Gallery, New York University, New York, New York.
Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, Israel.
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey
The Chicago Athenaeum, Chicago, Illinois.
Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY at Purchase, Purchase New York.
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, Danville, Virginia.
Prudential Insurance Company, San Francisco, California.
Tomasulu Gallery, Union Country College, Cranford, New Jersey.
Marietta/Cobb Museum, Trenton, New Jersey.
Erie Art Museum, Erie Pennsylvania.
The Hudson River Museum of Westchester, Yonkers, New York.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.
Hofstra Museum, Hampstead, New York.
The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut.
Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, Hemstead, New York.
Tuscan Museum of Art, Tucson, Tucson, Arizona.
The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut
Tuscan Museum of Art, Tuscan, Arizona. Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio.
Vero Florida. Suny Potsdam, Potsdam New York.
Sloan’s Curve, Palm Beach, Florida.
Somerset Plaza, Boca Raton, Florida.
Yeshiva University Museum, New York.
Jane Voorhess Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina.
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton Township, New Jersey.
Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, Florida.
Magnes Museum of Jewish Art & Life, University of California, Berkeley.
Patricia & Philip Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami, Florida.
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art Gainesville, Florida.
Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art, Saint Joseph Missouri.
The Bronx Museum of Arts, New York.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Pollack Gallery, Toronto, Canada, 1968.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada, 1968.
Alwin Gallery, London, England, 1970.
Gallery Moos, Toronto, Canada,1970.
Old Jaffa Gallery, Jaffa, Israel, 1970.
Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, New York, 1974.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1974.
Bicentennial tribute, United States federal Plaza, New York, New York, 1975-76.
Parsons School of Design, New York, New York, 1975.
Horace Richter Galleries, Jaffa, Israel, 1976.
Hebrew Union college, New York, New York, 1980.
The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut, 1982-83.
Byer Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois, 1984.
Louis K Meisel Gallery, In Retrospect: Sculptures from 1962-1997, New York, New York 1997.
Sudaram Tagore Gallery, The Common Ground, New York, 2002.
Yeshiva University Museum Homelands * Baghdad * Jerusalem * New York * A Retrospective, New York City, 2003-2004.
The Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery, Homelands * Baghdad * Jerusalem * New York * A Retrospective, Washington District of Columbia, 2004.
Orlando Museum of Art, “Oded Halahmy: Babylonian Odyssey”, Orlando, Florida, 2017.
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, Textures of Iraq: Contemporary Art from the Collection of Oded Halahmy, SUNY at New Paltz, New York, 2017.
Bronx Museum of the Arts. Exile is Home: Art by Oded Halahmy, New York, New York, 2018.
Yeshiva University Museum, Hey, Wow! The Art of Oded Halahmy, New York, New York 2018.
