ABOUT ELLIOT ARKIN    

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 This page is concerns the artist. To see his work please go to the main page by clicking here.

           Commissions & Honors & Reviews

  2000

           Andy Warhol Foundation: awarded license to exclusively create a collection of jewelry based on the

  1999

           Louvre Museum: acquisition of work of art in jewelry titled Extrait de "Le cadre ": Le baiser for its permanent collection in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. The conservatuer general des de l'Union des Arts Decoratifs, Marie-Claude Beaud, announced the decision by Le Comite Scientifique to acquire this sculpture by Elliott Arkin. She described the work as "enriching our contemporary collection" at the Louvre.

  1998

           Whitney Museum of American Art: Commissioned to execute (sculpt and fabricate) the American Art Award designed by Tom Otterness for the permanent collection of the Whitney.

 1996

           Muhammad Ali World Healing Project: Art Director. Designed art projects and events for the visual arts community to respond to Muhammad Ali's request for world healing and tolerance.

           Developed art projects with Christies auction house. Designed and created awards, symbols, and sculptures for the World Healing Art Project.

 1996

           The Three Tenors Official Commissioned Sculpture: Designed and sculpted a 6' bronze sculpture to reflect and honor the Three Tenors. Designed and developed derivative products such as a music-box, jewelry, and miniatures for various popular markets. Unveiled in Miami and was presented the key to the City by Mayor Alex Penelas.

  1995

           Tiffany & Co., Christmas Window Commission: Designed and created a series of Christmas window exhibits. Was selected to follow the legendary Gene Moore after his retirement.

           1985

           Tiffany & Co., Summer Window Commission: Designed and created a series of window exhibits. Selected by Gene Moore.

          1982

           Amherst College:Anthonasios Demetrios Skouras Prize and Anna Baker Heap Prize, Amherst Collage

           Permanent Public & Private Collection

The Louvre Museum, Musee des Arts Decorative

Flint Institute of the Arts, Flint, Michigan

  Whitney Museum of American Art (in collaboration with Tom Otterness) 

           New York Public Library

           New York Historical Society

           National Dance Museum

           Mr. & Mrs. Walter Forbes

           Lincoln Kirstein Estate

Reviews:

"Elliott Arkin operates,  like Robert Rauschenberg, "in the gap between art and life."...   ...Arkin’s philosophical and aesthetic position lies in that area of reality which hovers between art and life, and he uses  sculpture to create visual metaphors for experience."

                                                      --Margaret Sheffield is a freelance writer whose articles  have appeared in the NYTimes, Art America and Artforum  magazine.

    "Dear Elliott, It was very good to see you. Your body of work is impressive, as are you personally." –Jeffrey Hoffeld, Jeffrey Hoffeld & Company, Inc.

  "The Scientific Committee of the Museum of Decorative Arts has held a meeting on November 28, 1998 and has favorably decided to enter in our permanent collection  your piece "Extrait de "Le Cadre": Le Baiser"….  I want to thank you for participating in the enrichment of our contemporary  collection." – Marie-Claude Beaud,  Conservator General of the Museums of Central Union of Decorative Arts, The Louvre Museum

"These figures share more of a relationship to the work of Charlie Ray, Ron Mueck, or Steve Balkenhol. Arkin’s small people exude a kind of eerie lifelike quality that seems to coincide with the digital age and super-animation. The high-powered Japanese model arts come to mind.  The relationship his work shares with Mueck or Balkenhol, is that the  figures seem to have processed from a two-dimensional image. Although

                        Arkin’s figures are usually actual living people, the real people have been turned into animation figures; accurately reproduced back into three-dimensional objects. This is the departure from traditional  sculpture and something he shares with the leading edge of the field."

                        --Paul H.O. is a freelance art critic and contributor to Artnet.com. He is  the creates of Gallery Beat Television

"Unquestionably the most intriguing pieces from a technical point of view are the miniature figures by Elliott Jay Arkin.  Using a synthetic clay he pre-colors and later bakes in the over, Mr. Arkin fashions remarkably detailed scale models of  exaggerated characters – not trompe l’oeil humans in the  manner of Duane Hanson, but theatrically supercharged effigies designed to provoke close-up inspection. Like stop-animations, Mr. Arkin’s sculptures have a cartoon like quality."

–         Helen Harrison, New York Times

Among the best is the array of small colored clay figures by Elliott Jay Arkin. Arkin models of the  downtrodden, the desperate and the demonic are a  vision out of the darkest Bosch, by way of the Belgian satirist James Ensor. In fact, the bizarre carnival  figures, skeletons and hanged men appearing in Ensor’s paintings resurface in three dimensional form   in several of Arkin’s sculptures..Here is an artist with  a special, if pessimistic viewpoint, and uncommon    skills to go with it."

–         Karen Lipson,  Newsday

 LINKS:    Jewelrysite_2000 , Jeweler Central
 

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