Volf Roitman (Russian: Волф Ройтман) (30 December 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay – 25 April 2010) was a painter, sculptor and architect, sometimes referred to as a Renaissance Man, the son of Jewish Russian/Romanian parents.
He grew up in Argentina where he received a degree in architecture whilst co-editing a cult poetry magazine. At age twenty, he moved to Paris where, with Carmelo Arden Quin, founder of the Latin American movement MADI, instantly morphed into a painter while helping to relaunch MADI, first in France and eventually across four continents. Moving between countries and cultures – he has lived in Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and finally outside of Tampa, Florida, in the United States– and although eventually distanced from the MADI movement's official conservative views, he remained always faithful to its concepts of ludic invention and whimsical humor within the boundaries of colorful geometric abstraction. "Roitman is considered one of the great MADI creators. His disposition for aesthetic playfulness illustrates the very essence of the movement. Forms, colors, invention and imagination blend in a superabundance that alerts us to the existence of exceptional creation… …His sculptures - lamps, torches of the imagination – serve to corroborate the sense of liberty that runs through all of MADI creation "... Most recently, Roitman started to produce large transformable wall hangings called MADI Banners on silk and metal, some of which are applied on transparent surfaces glowing as stained glass windows. He has also taken his work to new dimensions by covering ordinary buildings, such as the Wood Building in Marshall, Texas and the MADI Museum in Dallas, with his vividly colored, three-dimensional panels, thus creating giant MADI "sculpture" pieces. Of the latter building, LA Weekly critic Peter Frank wrote, "The building … marks a landmark in recent history of art … Not since the Museum of non-Objective Art in New York morphed into the Guggenheim Museum more than half a century ago has there been anything like this in North America."
MADI has proved itself to be the longest-running, continuously active art movement in the world. The entity which Arden Quin and Roitman formed in 1951 eventually evolved into MADI International, that today comprises some sixty artists working on four continents.
Early years In 1951, Roitman moved to Paris, where he met the founder of the MADI movement, the Uruguayan master painter Carmelo Arden Quin. Following Roitman's proposal, both artists created the MADI Research and Study Center (for experimental art), which functioned through the 50s in Arden Quin's Montparnasse studio, an open workshop and research facility which significantly influenced the work of numerous European and North and South American artists then studying and working in the confines of the School of Paris. The Center promoted (1) non-figurative works with irregularly-shaped forms in flat, sharply defined colors; (2) the systemization of articulated, transformable and mechanized sculpture; and (3) an interdisciplinary approach to the arts first promoted by the Futurists but systemized, starting in the 40s, by MADI and by other groups such as Fluxus. In the field of MADI sculpture, massive structures are replaced by a dynamic relationship between the liness and planes of solid forms and the openings with which these forms are pierced. Space thus becomes an integral and equally important part of the work.Goodman, Shelley: Carmelo Arden Quin, When Art Jumped Out of Its Cage Madi Museum and Gallery, Dallas, Tx, 2004.
Roitman navigated through the Parisian avant-garde scene of cafes, studios and galleries where he drew his main inspiration during those years from the Belgian master George Vantongerloo. He was also inspired with a work from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris: Malevich's 1915 seminal work . "Already plunged into the worlds of Celtic myths, alchemy, and Zen Buddhism, Roitman believed that somewhere in this pale world of absent color, he might discover the absolute. From the beginning, his personal style involved a predominant use of circles, a complete break with Piet Mondrian’s sacrosanct straight linear structures and his orthogonal rigidity, a heresy for which he, like Georges Vantongerloo would often be signaled out and, on occasion, rebucked." Roger Neyrat, a French artist and a veteran of MADI in the 50s, still remembers: "I held this work (a Roitman painting, called The Lost Triangle -1953) above myself, ready to make it circulate among the few dozens of people assisting at my reading at Claude Dorval Gallery (1995)…It's the most beautiful MADI work, repeated Carmelo several times. We haven't ever gone so far in our abstract works!" Roger Neyrat continues: "But beginning in 1956, Roitman initiated a series of more complex compositions where the design became more dynamic, the curves more playful and dancing. Two years later, in New York City, this process led to his series of “Memories of Balanchine” (1958–1960), real MADI ballets...A pure joy and an example for new generations. There is so much of joyful emotion on these works, a rare gift even with the great abstract masters. Roitman has gone even further!"
During this period, Roitman's paintings were exhibited at the following venues: Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris: 1952 – 53 – 54 – 55 -56. Galerie Suzanne Michel, Paris, February 1953 Cercle Paul Valéry, La Sorbonne, Paris, 15 June 1953. Galerie de l’Odéon, Paris February 1954. Galerie Cimaise, in the show "14 Abstract Artistes", Paris, January 1955 acquis les bases solides de l’évolution picturale qui se manifestait alors. In November, 1955, Volf Roitman's exhibition at the Galérie de Beaune in Paris constituted the first solo show by a MADI artist in Europe. Galerie Denise René, Paris, a group show in April 1956 .
From 1961 to 1982, Roitman consecrated himself mainly to literature and other creative activities.See further below The Renaissance Man
The Var – Barcelona – 1979–1998 In 1979, although retaining his near Paris residence until 1984, Roitman started progressively to live most of the year in Montauroux, a village in the Var, behind the French Riviera.
In 1982, Roitman produced his first 3-dimensional collages. That same year, from 12 February to 10 March, the Espace Donguy, Paris, presented Mouvances MADI, Lieu 5, a group of artists which included works by Roitman, together with A.Q. Nunez, Neyrat, Alocco, Asis, Belleudy, Blaine, Bory, Chubac, Fejer, Monticelli and Vardánega. This exhibition marked the beginning of Roitman's return to the visual arts, even though he was also still writing and working in the film business. Since then, Roitman's work has been featured in over 100 MADI group and one-man shows, gallery and museum exhibitions, art fairs and auctions on four continents. Among the most important shows and events:
4–30 November 1984: Exhibition of Arte MADI, 1946–1984, Attualita de un Movimento, variation on the de la Salle show in Oct., held at Il Salotto Gallerie d’Arte, Como, Italy. Manifesto called Perchè Arte MADI written by Salvador Presta and signed by A.Q., Presta, de la Salle, Roitman and Esposito.
April 1991: Inauguration of Arte Concreto Invención, Arte MADI, an important historical book and retrospective organized by Miklos von Bartha at the Haus für Konstructive und Konkrete Kunst in Zurich, Switzerland. MADI historical artists in show are Arden Quin, Volf Roitman, Juan Bay, Martín Blaszko, Gyula Kosice, and Rhod Rothfuss. (see this Book)
April 1992: Abstraction Geometrique show at the Galerie de la Salle, St-Paul-de-Vence. Participants are Arden Quin, Bolivar, Chubac, Demarco, Garcia-Rossi, Lapeyrère, Melé, Poirot-Matsuda, Faucon, Belleudy, Caporicci, Desserprit, Le Cousin, Nemours, Presta, Blaszko, Caral, Decq, Girodon, Jonquière, Leppien, Piemonti, Sobrino, and Roitman, who is now working full-time on his paper collages and starting to apply the same three-dimensional principles of his collages to his first metal work, reliefs and sculpture pieces. From this period on, he will again show his work on a regular basis with the MADIstes.
From 1992 to 2005, Roitman became both head of Communication and Archivist for the MADI Movement. April 1993 : One-man show of Roitman's recent decoupages and his historical pieces from the 50s inaugurated at the St. Charles de Rose Gallery in Paris, and from May 7 to June 5 at the Helios Gallery in Calais, France. From 10 June to 15 September 1993, Roitman was one of the main organizers of a MADI show at the Chateau St-Cirq-Lapopie (Lot), France, a space formerly devoted to André Breton and the Surrealists, with 40 MADI artists participating. Painting, sculpture and poetic acts. (See catalogues)
9 April 1994: Inauguration of the one-man show Volf Roitman, Obras MADI at Centro de Arte La Rectoria, St-Pere-de-Vilamajor (Greater Barcelona), Spain, curated by Josep Plandiura. A room at the show is devoted to an introduction of the MADI concept to the Spanish public, and it was here that Roitman first showed his Proteus sculptures – cardboard decoupage encased in molded plastic frames and suspended from large metal stands.
1995: 8 June: In conjunction with Carmelo Arden Quin: 44 Ans Après, exhibition at Claude Dorval Gallery, Paris. Show commemorates meeting in Paris, 44 years earlier, of Arden Quin and Roitman and their founding of the MADI Research and Study Center in Arden Quin's Montparnasse studio. A conference, attended by Tomás Maldonado, founder of the Argentine movement, Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención, and a former member of MADI Argentina, is given by Roger Neyrat and Volf Roitman in the Dorval gallery on June 18. 6 October: Inauguration of Continuidad MADI show at the Centoira Gallery in Buenos Aires together with works by A.Q., Blaszko, Bolivar and Laperèyre. Oct. 30-Dec. 30: MADI, Anterioridad y Continuidad MADI exhibition at Museo Torres García - Montevideo., Montevideo, Uruguay. Historical and recent works with Arden Quin and Bolivar.
1996: 7 March– 3 April: MADI Internacional, 50 Ans Despuès, a groundbreaking international exhibition curated by Cesar Lopez-Osornio and shown at the Centro de Exposiciónes y Congresos of the Ibercaja Bank in Zaragoza, Spain. Roitman writes the historical section of the catalogue and the MADI chronology, and he shows his works with 56 MADI artists from France, Belgium, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Japan, Argentina, Venezuela, United States and Uruguay which officially introduces MADI art in Spain. March 28–May 10: Inauguration of MADI: Dopo Il Rettancolo show at Arte Struktura Gallery in Milan, focused on the works of three MADI artists: Arden Quin, Salvador Presta and Roitman. 20 September, at the Albuquerque Museum, Roitman gave a conference in which he introduced his philosophy of MADI-Ludico architecture, the ideas for which grew out of his works with 3-dimensional collages and laser-cut sculpture: "Strictly polygonal design of asymmetric façades ...geometric forms with sharply defined colors and contours, tri-dimensional surfaces, a clearly 'ludico' (playful) spirit...the same basic computer program can produce an almost inexhaustible series of different exterior panels. This system provides us with the means to overthrow the tyranny of the module which has, with few exceptions, ruled architecture from the time of ancient Egypt..." The same day, in the same city, he inaugurated a solo show at the Arte Struktura Gallery. In October 1996, Roitman obtained a commission to design and build a model for his project of a MADI-Ludico building designated for a site in downtown Dallas.
1997: