David Stern - At The Gates

DAVID STERN

AT THE GATES

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Cover: Study for a Monument to Stupidity, 2020, acrylic and pigment on canvas, 81x71 in.

Ellipsis Art is an art advisory firm that provides a full range of services in art acquisition, collection management, and curatorial advice.

Our mission is to create a direct dialogue between collectors and select artists and artists’ estates.

By working exclusively with artists and their estates, we create a unique opportunity for collectors to acquire art directly from artists.

ANGELICA SEMMELBAUER / Art Advisor angelica@ellipsis-art.com

DAVID STERN

AT THE GATES The Threshold to the Unknown - Meditations about the Foreign.

I have always been fascinated with closed doors of any kind, doorways and other gateways, and the question of what lies beyond the threshold. There is the excitement of moving from one state or quality to another. The anticipation helps to overcome the fear, but at the same time does not allow us to fully experience and see what lies beyond the threshold even when we already crossed it.

And then, those who have already crossed the threshold, and stand on the other side of it, do they welcome us or are they trying to prevent us from entering. What are their motives? Do they have it All and are trying to shut us out, to keep more of it to themselves, or are they trying to warn us of the horrors laying ahead?

It is obvious that I am not just talking about physical barriers, the literal doors or gates and the bouncers or border patrol agents, who guard them, but the metaphysical as well. The physical reality derives from our metaphysical concepts of thresholds, the red line, the moment we live in, as opposed to the unknown future.

Time is not passing, we are, and ultimately we are passing over into a different realm, we die. Unthinkable to everyone, not to be HERE anymore, and yet Millions are passing on every day. Death is the ultimate threshold, we all will have to cross, and that is a very good reason to think and meditate about the nature and meaning of thresholds.

I am not a philosopher, but a visual artist, bound by my knowledge of form and its’ laws and rules, so my contribution to this aeonian challenge is, to create images out of my own spiritual, physical and intellectual experience as a human being, which might shed a light on some of the aspects of these concepts.

David Stern

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“The substance that artists move around, whether it is clay, bronze, or oil, has to come to life, or mimic life by shining, gleaming, catching the eye and ultimately living on its own. As in alchemy, it is not enough merely to bring life to the inert pigments: the painter also has to toy with death, to bring the paint close to the point of no return in order to make it more convincing in the end. In the alchemical phrase: it is necessary to kill in order to create. ” - James Elkins, Author of “What Painting Is” At the Gates, Passage to Ideolopolis, 2019-21, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 71x81 in. 5

At the Gates, The Disciples, 2020/21, ac

crylic and pigments on canvas, 71x81 in.

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Jumping off the Sun, 2021, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 91x81 in.

Preachers’ Tumble, 2021, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 91x81 in.

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At the Gates, Rage of Fury, 2020, acry

ylic and pigments on canvas, 81x71 in.

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At the Gates, Stoker, 2020, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 55x47 in.

At the Gates, Loud is Not Enough, 2020, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 55x47 in.

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At the Gates, Saint Vitus Dance, 2020, ac

crylic and pigments on canvas, 55x47 in.

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At the Gates, Saint Vitus Dance (The Return of the Flage

ellants), 2020, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 55x47 in.

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Flight in Pursuit, 2021, acrylic an

nd pigments on canvas, 81x71 in.

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At the Gates, Axiom, 2019, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 56x49 in.

At the Gates, Armored Morning, 2019, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 56x49 in.

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At the Gates, D030, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, Three, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D002, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, D004, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D035, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, D034, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D012, 2018, acrylic and ink on paper, 25x38 in.

At the Gates, D015, 2018, acrylic and ink on paper, 25x38 in.

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At the Gates, black white and red, 2018,

acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D028, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, D029, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D035, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, D034,2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, The Sentinel Doctrine, 2019, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 52x64 in.

At the Gates, Descent of the flagellants, 2019, acrylic and pigments on canvas, 71x81 in. SOLD 37

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At the Gates, Cloaks no Daggers, 2019, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in. SOLD

At the Gates, The Trek, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, Three 02, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, Cloaks no Daggers, 2019, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D001, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, D005, 2018 acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D006, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, Black white and red, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D019, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, The Trek 02, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, Three 03, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, Three 01, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D016, 2018, acry

ylic and ink on paper, 25x38 in.

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At the Gates, D027, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in. SOLD

At the Gates, D022, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, D026, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

At the Gates, D031, 2018, acrylic and pigments on paper, 27x39 in.

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At the Gates, The Trek, 2019, acrylic and pigments, 71x81 in. (SOLD)

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2011 David Stern: Five Paintings, Messineo Art Projects/Wyman Contemporary, New York,

January 27 – March 13 2010 David Stern: The American Years (1995-2008)

national traveling exhibition curated by Karen Wilkin,

The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC, August 26-October 8, 2010 2009 Cold Cuts – The American Years,

Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, October 24- December 3, 2009

Selections from “One Hundred Simple Things,”

Messineo Art Projects/Wyman Contemporary, New York, May 14 – July 16 2008-09 David Stern: The American Years (1995-2008),

national traveling exhibition curated by Karen Wilkin, Yeshiva University Museum, New York,

September 18, 2008-February 8, 2009

Alexander Hogue Gallery, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK, October 30-November 28 2005-06 David Stern at The Starrett-Leihigh (project 1740), NYC

presented by Claudia Carr, November 15-December 20 2004 David Stern: Braces and Shadows, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, NYC, April 28-June 3 2002 David Stern: The Gatherings, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, NYC, October 10-November 16 2001 David Stern: Common Ground, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, NYC, April 25-May 26 2000 David Stern: Recent Paintings, Louis Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, April 27-June 3 1999 David Stern: Random Cycles, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, NYC, October 12-November 13

David Stern: Recent Work, William Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art,

College of Charleston, SC, September 2-25 1998 David Stern: New Paintings, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, NYC, April 28-May 30 1997 David Stern, Galerie Joachim Blüher, Cologne, Germany 1996 David Stern: Skypieces and Portraits, Rosenberg + Kaufman Fine Art, NYC,

September 11-October 19 1995 David Stern: Drawings and Paintings, Synagogue for the Arts, NYC, May 10-June 11

Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany 1994 David Stern, Kunstverein, Gütersloh, Germany, November 20 – December 11

Identity and Relationship: Recent Paintings by David Stern, National Jewish Museum,

Washington, DC, December 15 - January

David Stern: Bilder, Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany, October 14 – November 19

David Stern: Malerei, Galerie X Sadie Bierl, Munich, Germany 1993 David Stern: Malerei, Galerie Brennecke, Berlin, Germany, January 23 – March 6 1992-93 David Stern: Tanulmányok egy útról (Study for a Way), Hungarian National Gallery,

Budapest, Hungary, November 26, 1992 – January 7, 1993

David Stern: Malerei, Kunstsammlung der Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany,

March 15 – April 26 1992 David Stern: Malerei, Galerie Welz, Salzburg, Austria, September 4 – September 29

David Stern: Paintings, Martin Ainscough Gallery, Liverpool, England,

October 3 – November 2 57

ANGELICA SEMMELBAUER angelica@ellipsis-art.com

ELLIPSIS ART FOUNDER

ANGELICA SEMMELBAUER Angelica is a Private Art Advisor working with a variety of artists and consulting private clients. She is a member of the NYU Alumni Council and ArtTable, the leadership organization for professional women in the visual arts.

2005 - 2014 Director of Mimi Ferzt Gallery in New York City, which specialized in Russian Non-Conformist and Contemporary Art. Organized important curatorial exhibitions of prominent Russian artists, and successfully placed them in important private and public art collections around the world.

2004, NYU Masters Degree, Visual Arts Administration Published graduate thesis focused on building a sustainable global market for Russian Contemporary Art, tracing Russian art through its various historical movements, from Soviet era to the Russian Non-Conformist Movement, to discussion of today’s contemporary art in Russia.

Catalog Design: Lisa Meta Griff, Metamorfize.com 58