Cybernetic Art. Ivan Moscovich

About

The exhibition takes place at The Hospital Club’s Art Gallery in Covent Garden from 23rd-29th September 2016.

Ivan is a 90-year-old survivor of four concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and of the death marches before liberation. In his extraordinary life he went on to become the founding director of the Museum of Science and Technology in Tel Aviv and award-winning inventor of educational games, with more than 100 to his credit in all. He is also the author of more than 50 books of games and puzzles and is still writing in his ‘retirement’ – most recently published are The Puzzle Universe and his best-selling title The Big Book of Brain Games, topping the sales on Amazon. He is currently working on a book on creativity, a subject he considers the most important force in his life.

The Club will present a selection of Ivan’s internationally exhibited Harmonograms, made with his invention, the Harmonograph. The Harmonograms were produced during a short window in the late 60s and early 70s. They were thrust into the public’s attention in 1968 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London as part of the iconic Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition and represent some of the best pioneering kinetic artworks ever produced. Ivan’s original harmonograph is now kept at the Technorama Science Museum in Winterthur, Switzerland.

The Harmonograms, which are all one-off unique drawings, were exhibited the world over including the ICA, London; the International Design Centre, Berlin; the Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City; the Didacta Exhibitions in Basel and Hannover; and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Several of the works have been purchased by The Exploratorium in San Francisco as part of their permanent collection and will go on display later this year. Ivan will appear on BBC Breakfast on 16th September and has been interviewed by Robert Dex, arts correspondence at the Evening Standard. There will be other radio and TV coverage during his visit in September.