Amikam Toren Israeli, b. 1945

Amikam Toren (b. 1945 Israel) lives and works in London. A significant figure in British conceptual art, Toren’s project–reaching back to the middle years of the 1970s–is profoundly consistent in the quality and conceptual rigour of its concerns and output. Individual pieces do not determine his project, but the project determines the identity of his pieces. Very few artists have plumbed the status and identity of image and object through painting and sculpture to an equal degree. Representation–defined as a structure that guarantees the imaginary capture of a subject by an object–is a major area of concern. Though in this, Toren’s approach turns the common understanding of representation in painting, where the representation excludes that which is being represented, on its head. In his art there is an immediate link between the materials which comprise a work and the process of its making. This is a great part of its economy, just as simultaneous acts of destruction and creation are a central feature of the circular economy that unifies Amikam Toren’s practice.

Amikam Toren has exhibited extensively throughout Europe. He has had solo exhibitions in major UK venues including: Serpentine Gallery, London, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Chisenhale Gallery, London, Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, ICA, London, and Matt’s Gallery, London. Toren has work in the permanent collections of Tate, London; British Arts Council, London; and Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2013, 1990); Ramat-Gan Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2000); Chisenhale Gallery, London (1991); Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (1991); Rotterdam Kunststichtung, Rotterdam (1989); ICA, London (1979); and Serpentine Gallery London (1976) as well as galleries in Basel, Berlin, Paris, Cologne and Tel Aviv. Recent group exhibitions include “Unorthodox” at the Jewish Museum, New York (2015); Imago Mundi at Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice (2015); Hite Foundation, Seoul (2013); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2012); Venice Biennale, Venice (2012); and the 4th Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art (2012) and Suzhou Biennial (2023).