Buky Schwartz

Buky Schwartz ( ; , ; June 16, 1932 – September 1, 2009, Tel Aviv) was an Israeli sculptor and video artist.

Biography Moshe (Buky) Schwartz was born in Jerusalem. From 1956 to 1958, he studied sculpture with Yitzhak Danziger (1916–1977) at the Avni Institute of Art and Design, under Aharon Avni in Tel Aviv. In 1959, he moved to London to study at Saint Martin's School of Art. In 1966–1967, he taught at Saint Martin's.

Art career

After returning to Israel in 1963, he became known for his painted steel sculptures that were predominantly geometric in form. In 1971, he moved to New York City and began making "video structures" in which he filled a room with shapes that came together as a unified whole when projected on a video screen. He also placed mirrors inside sculptures that reflected the sculpture as a whole or certain parts of it. Schwartz also created conceptual art based on an exploration of his own body. He showed his video installations at The Cultural Space on Canal Street in Manhattan.

Schwartz lived and worked in Tel Aviv and New York City until he died in 2009.

Awards and recognition 1961 Sainsbury Awards, Sainsbury's, United Kingdom 1962 German Critics' Prize, Association of German Critics, Berlin, Germany 1965 Dizengoff Prize for Sculpture 1971 Nuremberg Urban Symposium Purchase Award, Nuremberg Urban Symposium, Nuremberg, Germany 1980 Fellowship, Community Arts Partnership, New York, USA 1983 Video Art Award, New York State Council on the Arts, New York, USA 1983 Residency Program, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, USA 1987 Guggenheim Award, Guggenheim, New York, USA 1988 Sculpture Grant, National Endowment for the Arts, USA 1989 Annual International Prize for Video Sculpture, L'immagine Elettronica, Italy 1990 Grant for Publication, Guggenheim, New York, USA 1991 Painting and sculpture prize, Ministry of Culture and Education 1992 Video Sculpture Prize, Pollok Prize 1995 Elhanani Prize, Tel Aviv, for Integration of Art and Architecture Yehoshua Rabinowitz Fund for Arts, for his painted steel sculpture at Rothschild Blvd, Tel Aviv

Outdoor sculptures 1963–64 Altars and Water Channels, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel 1967 Pillar of heroism, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1969 Gates, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1969 White from 0 Degrees to 180 Degrees, Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1986 Memorial to Jonathan Netanyahu, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1986 Dead Sea Sculpture, Ein Bokek, Dead Sea 1988–92 Painted steel sculpture, Rothschild Blvd, Tel Aviv 1990 Metropolis, 1990, Tel Aviv University 1996 Obelisk, Kibutz Galuiot St., Tel Aviv 1997–98 Capital, outdoor sculpture, Isracard Building, Tel Aviv 1997–98 Pinball machine, Isracard Building, Tel Aviv 1998 Zig-Zag, landscape sculpture, steel, Park West, Ra'anana 2001 "Leonardo" Ramat Poleg, Netanya, Israel 2002 Between earth and sky, Kiriat Uno, Israel 2002 The Giving Tree, Lavon Park, Holon, Israel 2007 Mosquito, Tel Aviv Museum of Art 2011 Aviron, Giv'atayim Theatre Sculpture Garden, Givatayim, Israel

Archive Buky Schwartz's family donated his archival collection to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem in 2019. The Buky Schwartz Archive is housed at the museum's Information Center for Israeli Art. It contains some 2,000 archival items documenting the work process of the artist. Throughout his career Schwartz collected materials pertaining to his works including: handwritten installation manuals, correspondence, photographs, sketches, prints, negatives, invitations to exhibitions and other documentation. The content of the artist's analog video collection, approximately 50 tapes, consists of documentation of video installations, works in progress, and press releases including interviews with the artist. The video documentation of Schwartz’s installations illustrates the mechanics of the work, and the impact the work had on viewers.

The Information Center is in the process of digitizing and cataloging the collection to make the images more accessible.

Gallery