Art Speak
April, 2003
by Audrey Regan
He answers to two names—Sam Israel and Ivan Spinoza—and, New York lawyer or not, he looks like a slightly disheveled cowboy who might be late for something. One wouldn’t expect a lawyer, in the middle of his work day, to be wearing blue jeans or his file cabinets to be plastered with art and draped in Moroccan fabric; but he is and they are.
A
graduate of New York University School of Law, Sam Israel is on a client phone
call one moment, and the next, he is Ivan Spinoza, printing art from his computer—one
digital montage after another. “I grab images wherever I can find them,” he
says, “I just alter them and put them together in my own way.” At this moment
in 
time,
Spinoza is experimenting with brilliant, almost fluorescent colors. One is
struck by this unique set of circumstances, where the attorney is free to
indulge his artistic side; where paintings and legal documents share space
on the same desk.
Sam Israel didn’t always have such an integrated setup. For years he was a litigator in a large firm with art being his external hobby. In 1995, he set up a private practice to represent clients in diverse commercial disputes including matters of trademark/unfair competition, copyright infringement, creditor’s rights and restructuring, labor-related issues, commercial fraud, securities and contract interpretation. As a litigator, he has a stellar reputation.
Three years after going solo, he went searching for bigger offices and discovered 594 Broadway in New York's SoHo district, specifically suite 1010 , a lofty space with high ceilings, noble columns and wood floors. The Locus-Media Gallery was born. Here, law would be practised; exhibitions would be curated; a novel would be completed; films would be made and a video production company, Fistful of Pixels, Inc., would be formed. And Ivan Spinoza would have a permanent showplace for his prolific creativity.
When the gallery is “between shows", its walls are lined with Spinoza’s paintings and drawings, mostly small in scale but rich in finely-penned detail – images of people, facing forward, their large eyes filled with questions; fraught with confusion. You want to ask who they are but you sense the artist would only smile at such a question, or anwer in a way that would require even deeper analysis. Whoever the people in his paintings represent, they have a way of staying with you. Spinoza’s 3D works have him creating connections between accumulated, often heterogeneous objects. His latest sculpture is a mythical universe in a lucite box, comprising statuary, tiny dolls, heads of dolls, angels, elves and two figurines of mothers - the Madonna and a gorilla - each holding their babies. The most prominent figure in the assemblage, though not the largest, is a male in shirt and tie, who seems to be policing the angelic community before him. The sculpture rests on a pedestal in one corner of the gallery, its resin glaze just barely dry.
With only a partition separating the large white art gallery from the not-so-large, pleasantly cluttered law office, it is clear that when it comes to square footage, Ivan the artist wins out over Sam the lawyer.
But, what is Sam Israel/Ivan Spinoza really like? It might help to examine the nature of the exhibitions he has staged in his gallery; the themes he is drawn to as a curator. One of them, “Return to the Womb Room: An Exploration of Mothers and Others”, was an interdisciplinary adventure into motherhood, sexuality, spirituality, family, loneliness and alienation by an impressive group of New York female artists. That exhibit is forever immortalized in a book by the same name. It sits on a low table in the gallery, along with all the other books—one for every Locus-Media show-- and all created by Sam Israel/Ivan Spinoza himself. If you open the cover of any one of them, you will find it is hard to put down. Here you can see the organized mind, that works so well in law, applied to the arts and a light goes on.
Most of the Locus-Media exhibitions underline a unique, if not rare, insistence upon fairness; of validating everyone, no matter what their race, gender, creed, color or physical characteristics. As an example, Locus-Media held a fashion show to celebrate women of all body types, including tall and thin, athletic and full-figured and interesting in-betweens, providing a debut for Richard Metzger, the first full-figured fashion designer … with proceeds donated to the New York Foundling Hospital . In the first two years of operation, Locus-Media Gallery produced four charity driven events, including a wearable art exhibit, emceed by soap star, Linda Dano. That event raised several thousand dollars for God’s Love We Deliver, an organization which improves the health and well-being of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS, by alleviating hunger and malnutrition.
For Sam Israel and Ivan Spinoza, the scales of balance are built in. It seems not to be the usual hardwiring. There are no traces of male cronyism and bravado. Still, the hard edges are there—revealed in his anger over certain politicians; about news and information that doesn’t get reported; about the frustration of people forced to accept what has become so difficult to change. Sam makes a casual reference to his childhood; about the importance of knowing “how to leave” when the going gets rough. “I took a three month course,” he explains, “On how to help victims of domestic abuse and I love this work. I try to help people who are being abused to make a plan. They need to find a way out, to get themselves to a better place.” This confirms a growing realization that he, too, is survivor; that life has not always been easy.
For just a moment, Sam’s office and gallery are quiet. He settles into his chair, crossing his long legs on top of the desk and takes a stab at the wilting salad in front of him. But another call comes in; this time a prospective new client. A pen quickly replaces the fork. Later, as the day wears down, new beings will fly from Spinoza’s imagination; and a new cast of characters will be chosen for permanent positioning in his next, highly-glazed universe on a pedestal.
