"Tobi Kahn: Quest for the Essence"

The career of New York artist Tobi Kahn (b.1952) can be best defined by seeming opposites: consistency and change. The magic of his practice is that the two coexist, not only complementing but also enhancing one another. Quest for the Essence, organized by the Boca Raton Museum of Art, illustrates how Kahn’s art embraces and refines this duality during a 40-year career. Anchored by two monumental Sky and Water installations – both prompting reflection, encouraging us to slow down – Kahn’s paintings, works on paper, sculptures, and ritual objects embody his quest for the essence of places, people, and things.

We recognize the human figure in nature and the landscape in the contours of bodies; places whose photographs always form the basis of paintings are transformed into abstractions; motion is at once arrested and encouraged. The defining quality is resisting realism, refusing to offer an easy reading of what is depicted. Kahn once said that he loves it when someone comes up with an entirely new interpretation of one of his works: each of us seeing something completely different creating our own journey as we look, and being enriched by the journey, are his ultimate goals.

Kahn’s art has often been described in relation to spirituality, specifically in relation to Judaism, whose teachings and practices are integral to his life. Yet his vision embraces more than any one religion or belief system. The universality of Kahn’s art lies in its generous search for community and healing. His ZAHRYZ (Tzedek Box) gives shape to a contemporary Jewish ritual, of writing down and preserving righteous deeds, yet invites all of us to record and remember each time over the course of the year when we contribute to the world’s healing. It is one of many ritual objects Kahn has adapted or invented to reflect the practice of belief in the modern world, and more generally, our search for something holy.

The works in the exhibition were deliberately chosen to illustrate what has been most important to Kahn throughout his career: they are all from the artist’s collection. They were the works he would not sell, that still adorn the walls of his studio in Long Island City and serve as context and inspiration for his journey. The exhibition, in turn, invites you to take your own journey in discovering the richness and healing power of Tobi Kahn’s art.