Weaving the Web | Patronage

(Context)

FOUNDED 2010 | ART, FILM, PUBLISHING, DESIGN, & PRODUCTION

(Investigation)

Painting, Bricolage, Film, & Cultural Exchange

(Partners 2021 - present)

Monolith: Everything Returns to the Earth, scrolls, & posters, Installation view We Breathe the Same Air, Counter-Archive, Rusha & Co., 2026

In The Savage Mind (1962), Claude Lévi-Strauss describes bricolage as a way of thinking and making through materials already at hand. Fragments of earlier constructions acquire new relationships and meanings through their continual recombination.

Over thirty years, I have accumulated paintings, drawings, collages, studies, and fragments into a counter-archive. Its material forms include the Monolith, Everything Returns to the Earth, a sculptural accumulation of artworks; eleven exceptionally long painting scrolls; and thousands of fragments, many double-sided. In parallel, a digital archive of approximately 2.2 million files has been processed into 2,200 still and moving-image compositions through software, scripting, and computational experimentation.

These forms remain in motion. The Monolith is gradually dismantled, the scrolls unfold, and fragments enter new compositions, original artworks, publications, and an eleven-episode film with original soundscapes and music tracks. Each transformation preserves traces of what preceded it while opening possibilities for what comes next.

Weaving the Web, Medium: In Medias Res, Episode 1

(Every Painting Is a Node)

Every painting is a node in an expanding network of images, encounters, and relationships.

Euclidean space describes the measurable dimensions of an artwork, its physical boundaries, scale, and position. Eulerian relationships, understood through the connections of a network, describe another condition: how images move across time, materials, people, and institutions, regardless of physical distance.

A painting occupies both conditions simultaneously. It exists as a material object and as part of a changing constellation of images, memories, and encounters. A fragment removed from the Monolith may become an independent artwork, reappear in a film, enter a publication, or find its way into a private collection. Its physical location changes, but its relationships continue to multiply. Together, these spatial and relational conditions offer a way of understanding the production and circulation of art today.

(Circulation & Exchange)

The work extends beyond the individual artwork through film, publishing, exhibitions, and cultural encounters.

Through The Pioneers, Rusha & Co., Curator, and Agile Cinema®, paintings and their histories circulate across material and mediated forms. Each presentation generates new relationships between artworks, audiences, collectors, and institutions.

Rusha & Co. provides an exhibition and gallery context for the paintings and counter-archive. Curator extends their circulation through editorial publishing and cultural dialogue, while Agile Cinema® transforms images and encounters into an evolving film structure. These activities remain interconnected rather than separate destinations, allowing paintings to generate new images, narratives, and relationships across time.

Together, these initiatives are developing a multimedial, multivocal, and multichannel series throughout 2026–27, culminating in an exhibition and accompanying public programming at Rusha & Co. in winter 2027–28.

(Patronage & Participation)

To acquire an artwork is to participate in this evolving initiative, contributing to an investigation in which paintings, images, encounters, and their histories continue to unfold.

Patronage supports original artistic production, research, publishing, and exhibitions. Each level includes acquisitions from The Pioneers' counter-archive, connecting private ownership with the continuing circulation of artworks and ideas.

Introductory Patronage | $950 | 2 Months Delivery
Commission three original 4 × 4" artworks selected from the counter-archive, accompanied by a private conversation introducing the larger artistic investigation and its ongoing transformations.

Art & Research Patronage | $2,500 | 3 Months Delivery
Commission three original 4 × 4" artworks and one 10 × 10" artwork. Includes an extended encounter exploring the paintings, their histories, and the ideas informing the continuing artistic investigation.

Film & Publishing Patronage | $5,000 | 6 Months Delivery
Commission three original 4 × 4" artworks, one 10 × 10", and one 20 × 20" artwork. Includes expanded encounters and opportunities for agreed participation in the evolving film and editorial publications.

Exhibition Patronage | $10,000 | 12 Months Delivery
Commission three original 4 × 4" artworks, one 10 × 10", one 20 × 20", and one 36 × 36" artwork. Includes a series of encounters and opportunities for significant participation in the artistic investigation, film, publications, and planned exhibition at Rusha & Co.

Exclusive Series Patronage | 12 Months Delivery
Comprehensive patronage of the artistic investigation by an individual or organization, including original artworks, private encounters, expanded film and publishing production, significant exhibition participation, and additional acquisitions established by agreement. Includes prominent recognition across agreed exhibitions, publications, film, and media releases.

Inquiry | For individuals and organizations interested in supporting The Pioneers through original artwork acquisitions, research, film, publishing, and exhibitions.

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(Background)

Saul Appelbaum is an artist, director, writer, independent curator, producer, and digital strategist in the arts and culture sector. His practice combines storytelling, design, architectonic thought, and media to amplify cultural narratives and experiment with new infrastructures for cultural exchange. He is committed to the ability of participatory media and art to reshape how audiences experience culture across disciplines, fostering engagement that is both intellectual and emotional.

Appelbaum is the Founding Director of The Pioneers, a media production company that champions Agile Cinema®, an agile, hybrid mode of media creation spanning fiction, non-fiction, scripted, and unscripted formats. Through The Pioneers, he has developed projects with The Broad Museum, Serpentine Galleries, Marian Goodman Gallery, and Petzel Gallery, reflecting an ongoing commitment to experimentation and multichannel cultural storytelling.

His projects have intersected with institutions, publications, organizations, and brands including Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue, InStyle, L’Officiel, Grazia, Numéro, Critical Inquiry, Hirmer Verlag, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of the African Diaspora, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Kunstmuseum Bern, The Columbus Museum of Art, Singapore Art Museum, Atlanta Art Fair, TRANSFER Gallery, New Museum, The Jewish Federation, Perry Ellis, ASICS, Kids of Immigrants, The Visionaries Agency, TCAmgmt, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, FGP Atelier, Rocco Castoro’s SCNR, and Nato Thompson’s The Alternative Art School.

His work has also brought him into dialogue with artists and cultural figures including Tony Cragg, Ann Hamilton, Pope.L, Mick Jenkins, Snoop Dogg, Adam McKay’s Yellow Dot Studios, Heidi Klum, Diego Boneta, Natalia Reyes, and Zión Moreno.

Appelbaum's solo and two-person exhibitions include Slow Grief I: Foundations and Agile Cinema® at Rusha & Co. in Los Angeles, and an exhibition at Brownstone Gallery in Bangkok. His group exhibitions include We Breathe the Same Air at Rusha & Co., the Los Angeles Zine and Art Book Bazaar at MaRS Gallery, Gold & White at Paragon and the Mui Lee Boutique in Siam Center with James Dean Company in Bangkok, Morphologies at the Logan Center Gallery at the University of Chicago, and Working Frameworks at Cornell University's Sibley Gallery. His films and performances have been presented at Et al. Books in collaboration with Kristin Bauer, TRANSFER Gallery in association with NYU's Integrated Design & Media program, and the Cornell Electroacoustic Music Center at Sage Chapel, McGraw Tower utilizing the Cornell Chimes, and Lincoln Hall.

His curatorial projects include We Breathe the Same Air, Slow Grief I: Foundations, and Natalia Pereira: Engine Company 33 at Rusha & Co., as well as Working Frameworks, a multi-venue initiative spanning Cornell University, Ohio State University, and Columbia College Chicago. His artworks are held in collections including the ASU FIDM Museum, Natalia Reyes, and the Honorary Consul General of Austria in Chicago. His research contributions include The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary Architecture, published by Routledge, and Symphonic Poem: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson, associated with the Columbus Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum.

Appelbaum holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Master of Architecture from Cornell University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Chicago. He is based in Los Angeles and maintains an international presence.