• born in 1946 in Bergen-Belsen, Germany
• immigrated to Canada in 1948
• studied psychology at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba (1967-70), graduated with a degree in photographic arts from the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, Toronto, Ontario

click on thumbnails at left to view larger images

Working with photography and photographic installations, Isaac Applebaum has explored the themes of ethnicity and racism, largely through the portraiture that Donna Lypchuk (1991) has described as "the mapping of a human face." Precipitated by a visit in 1985 to his birthplace in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Applebaum produced that year a compelling series entitled Man Makes Himself, a complicated work comparing the photographer’s interpretation of the preliminary judicial hearing of Jim Keegstra, the high school history teacher in Alberta charged with promoting hatred against Jews in the early 1980s, with events of the Second World War. Instead of a typical tale beginning with discrimination in Europe in the 1930s, and ending with the liberation of the camps in 1945, Applebaum reverses the order of things so that the ending is the beginning, the war coming in a full circle back to the kind of racism promoted by Keegstra. Later the same year, Applebaum showed the series Move, a continuation of his exploration of human displacement, again chiefly using portraiture. He also produced a series, Cruelty of Stone, capturing his trip to Israel of 1989. In this series Applebaum departed from his usually strong emphasis on portraiture and combined images of the stones of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem with photo-etchings on rabbit hide and photographs of an uninhabited Palestinian village. For Applebaum, the stones bear witness to the complex and disturbing history of the Jews and Palestinians (Donna Lypchuk, 1991). As the artist’s insights on Jewish experience, though, such works are in fact only parts in a larger exploration of human interaction and the nature of photography itself. In 1992, the photographer moved from his interest in the Middle East to closer surroundings, examining the landscape and peoples of British Columbia in Weeping. As Applebaum describes: "The subject of my work is rooted in our psychological and social environment. I am particularly concerned with our relationship to ourselves, to other people, and to our societies. My photography almost without exception involves people in a situation. Photo installation works . . . are especially well suited to what I am doing since by their nature they position objects/ideas in relation to each other and in this way create an environment or situation." Applebaum is also well-known for editing Impressions Magazine from 1976 to 1982, and acting as artist projects editor for C Magazine (1985).

Silver Anchors / For New Boats
The Gallery, Arts Court, Ottawa, Ontario

Four Artists from Canada
Fonapos, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico

Unaffiliated Artists Show
515 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario

Street Photography
A Space, Toronto, Ontario

Latitudes and Parallels: Focus on Contemporary Canadian Photography
Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba

O KromaZone
Das Institut Unzeit, West Berlin, Germany

Nancy Reagan Fashion Show
Printed Matter, New York, New York

Art in the Subway
A Space, Toronto, Ontario

Toronto Photographers' Workshop Show
Factory 77, Toronto, Ontario

Station to Station
A Space, Toronto, Ontario

La Mamelle, San Francisco, California

Baldwin Street Gallery, Toronto, Ontario

Dault, Gary Michael. "Here between towers photographic environments of Eldon Garnet and Isaac Applebaum." Vanguard 11, no. 7 (September 1982): 18-21.

Fabo, Andy. O Kromazone: Die Anderen von Kanada. Introduction. West Berlin, Germany: Das Institut Unzeit, 1982.

Gauthier, Louise. "Isaac Applebaum." Parachute, no. 60 (October/ November/ December 1990): 61.

Lypchuk, Donna. "Isaac Applebaum: A seminal figure on the Canadian art scene." Canadian Art 8, no. 1 (1991): 69.

MacLennan, Hugh. Contemporary Canadian Photography from the Collection of the National Film Board. Edmonton, Alberta: Hurtig Publishers, 1984.

Madill, Shirley. Introduction to Latitudes and Parallels: Focus on Contemporary Canadian Photography. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1983.

Mays, John Bentley. "Unaffiliated Artists." Vanguard 12, no. 3 (September 1983): 35.

Podedworny, Carol. "Trajectories of Meaning . . . The work of Isaac Applebaum and Robert Houle." In The Power of the Dead, Seven in Steel. Toronto, Ontario: Garnet Press Gallery, 1993.

Rhodes, Richard. Alternate Photography. Toronto, Ontario: YYZ Artists' Outlet, 1983.