Jonathan Borofsky

Male/Female, 2000
2 color lithography / 4 color serigraph
Edition of 35, Gemini G.E.L.

Painter and sculptor Jonathan Borofsky is a conceptual artist who utilizes his subconscious as inspiration. With artwork distributed worldwide from Seoul, Korea, to Seattle, Washington, the artist has become well known for his large-scale exterior sculpture and impermanent installations.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1942, the artist attended Carnegie Mellon University where he earned his undergraduate degree in 1964. Upon graduation, Borofsky moved to Paris where he studied at the Ecole de Fontainbleau. In 1966, Borofsky received his masters from the Yale School of Art and Architecture. The artist taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1969 to 1977 and at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles from 1977 to 1980. Jonathan Borofsky has since started focusing on his own artwork and no longer teaches.

A painter and sculptor by trade, Borofsky stated that he enjoys creating exterior sculpture to interact with the unsuspecting public.  Inspired by his dreams, the artist’s work is a unique and personal window into his subconscious. With the exception of his sculptures and works on paper, most of artist’s work is temporary: after a show, his installations are deconstructed and walls are painted over.

Jonathan Borofsky’s ongoing personal project, counting from one to infinity, started when Borofsky was in graduate school in the 1960s. This project is incorporated into each of his works of art:  the number found on any of the artist’s pieces coincides with his ongoing counting project and takes the place of his signature. This number represents the exact number in the counting project that the artist was on when the work of art was finished.

Male/Female, on display at Chapman, is a print on paper that represents a common motif among Borofsky’s artwork: the artist uses the silhouette of a man intersecting a silhouette of a woman. In Male/Female we can see the similarities and differences between the two silhouettes as their bodies cross like a venn diagram.