Israel Contemporary art
Yaacov Agam, an Israeli kinetic and optical artist born on May 11, 1928, is celebrated for revolutionizing the visual arts with his dynamic and interactive creations. Agam's pioneering work extends beyond traditional static art forms, inviting viewers into a transformative experience that changes with perspective and movement. His art, deeply rooted in his Jewish heritage and mysticism, eschews representational imagery for abstract, geometric forms and vibrant colors, engaging the observer's perception to complete the visual experience.
Notably, Agam's contributions to kinetic art have not only garnered him international acclaim but also led to his works commanding the highest prices among Israeli artists at auction. His innovative "Agamographs" use lenticular printing to create illusions of depth and motion, highlighting his fascination with the interplay between art, viewer, and the temporal dimension. Agam's significant exhibitions include retrospectives at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. His achievements are further recognized through multiple awards and the establishment of the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art in his hometown of Rishon LeZion, Israel, dedicated to his vision of art in motion.
For collectors and art and antiques experts, Agam's work represents a profound exploration of perception, time, and spirituality, offering a unique and engaging experience. His art invites us to see beyond the visible, reminding us of the ever-changing nature of reality and our active role in its perception. To stay updated on new product sales and auction events related to Yaacov Agam, sign up for updates and immerse yourself in the dynamic world of one of the most influential modern artists.
Tamam Al-Akhal is a Palestinian artist and educator living in Jordan. She studied at the Fine Arts College in Cairo. From 1957 to 1960, she taught art at the Makassed Girls College in Beirut. In 1959, she married Ismail Shammout. Al-Akhal has exhibited in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem, Jordan, the United States, Kuwait, England, China, Morocco, Berlin, Paris, Rome, and Vienna. She gave a series of lectures at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in 2009. Her art appeared on more than a dozen covers of Palestinian Affairs, a magazine published by the Palestine Liberation Organization. She was also head of the PLO's Arts and Heritage section. With her husband, she painted a series of large murals known as "Palestine: The Exodus and the Odyssey."
Ron Arad (Hebrew: רון ארד) is a contemporary Israeli-born artist, architect, and designer known for his innovative and boundary-pushing creations.
Throughout his career, Arad has explored various materials and techniques, embracing both handcrafted and technological processes. His designs often blur the boundaries between art and design, challenging conventional notions of form and function. Arad's furniture pieces are characterized by their sculptural qualities, organic shapes, and a sense of fluidity.
Leonid Fyodorovich Balaklav (Russian: Леонид Фёдорович Балаклав) is a Soviet and contemporary Israeli artist. He is known as a painter, graphic artist and cartoonist.
Leonid Balaklav began his career in Kishinev, then moved to Kiev, where he worked on scientific films. In 1987 at the Tokyo Film Festival he was awarded a gold medal for his animated works. In 1989 he moved to Israel, where he became known for his portraits, lyrical landscapes and works on religious themes. His work is often associated with Jewish identity, and his paintings are known for their intimacy and detail. He uses oil paints on wood to create his works.
Ori Gersht is an Israeli photographer and video artist. He is known for his use of photography and video to explore themes of memory, history, and conflict.
Gersht's work often involves the use of slow-motion and high-speed video, which allows him to capture the ephemeral and fleeting moments that are often overlooked in daily life. He also uses a range of photographic techniques, including still life and landscape photography, to create images that are both beautiful and haunting.
Some of Gersht's most famous series include "Time After Time," which captures the moment of a bursting flower, and "Liquidation," which explores the destruction of historical objects. He has also created video installations that examine the history and memory of the Holocaust.
Gersht's work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world, and he has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to the field of photography and video art. He continues to produce new work and is widely regarded as one of the most important contemporary artists working today.
Moshe Gershuni (Hebrew משה גרשוני) was an Israeli painter and conceptual artist. He was born in Tel Aviv, Israel and studied art at the Avni Institute of Art and Design in Tel Aviv.
Gershuni's early work was characterized by abstract expressionism and gestural painting, but he later turned to conceptual art, exploring themes of identity, memory, and politics. He often used text, photography, and found objects in his works, which were highly personal and expressive.
Gershuni was also a prominent member of the Israeli art community, and he was involved in various cultural and political movements. He was a vocal critic of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and used his art to address issues of conflict and human rights.
In 1995, Gershuni represented Israel at the Venice Biennale, where he presented a series of works that addressed the Holocaust and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He continued to exhibit his work extensively throughout his career, both in Israel and internationally.
Gershuni's legacy as an artist is significant, and his work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and publications. He is regarded as one of the most important Israeli artists of the 20th century, and his influence on the development of Israeli art and conceptual art more broadly is widely acknowledged.
David (Dudu) Gerstein is an Israeli painter, sculptor, draftsman and printmaker.
Gerstein received a broad education: he studied at the Bezalel Academy, then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in New York he continued his studies at the Art Students League, and in 1974 he received a diploma from St. Martin's School of Art in London. He works freely in all media: printmaking, painting, sculpture, drawing, murals and monumental creations.
In the 1970's Gerstein began experimenting with three-dimensional works, leaving cut-out fragments hanging in space. After many innovations, David began creating wall sculptures made with laser cutting and automotive paint. He created his own kind of pop art and gained an international reputation for his signature style with colorful images of numerous cyclists, butterflies, dancers, runners and more. With the advent of computers, he was able to convert his drawings into perfectly formatted patterns that can be faithfully reproduced in a metalworking shop.
And Gerstein's recognizable monumental sculptures can be seen in cities around the world. His street sculpture Momentum is Singapore's tallest public sculpture.
Herman Moiseyevich Gold (Russian: Герман Моисеевич Гольд) is a Soviet, Ukrainian and contemporary Israeli artist. He is known as a painter, draftsman, and watercolorist, renowned for his expressive style of painting.
Herman Gold is skilled in both oil painting and watercolor, and often gives his works a dramatic character. He is one of the few contemporary Jewish artists to be included in the legendary World Encyclopedia of Artists of All Time.
His works are in museums and galleries in many countries, including Russia, Ukraine, France, Greece, the United States and others.
Moshe Kupferman (Hebrew: משה קופפרמן) was an Israeli painter known for his abstract, minimalist works. He was a major figure in Israeli art, and his work was recognized internationally.
Kupferman emigrated to Israel in 1945. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and later in Paris. Kupferman's early works were influenced by the European modernist tradition, but he later developed a unique style that was characterized by minimalism and simplicity.
Kupferman's paintings often featured a limited palette of colors and simple geometric shapes arranged in a grid-like structure. He believed that his art should express a sense of spiritual calm and balance and sought to create works that were both visually striking and meditative.
Kupferman's work was exhibited extensively in Israel and around the world, and he received numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He was also a teacher and mentor to many younger Israeli artists.
Kupferman's legacy as one of Israel's leading abstract painters continues to influence contemporary Israeli art today.
Elad Lassry is an Israeli-American artist who lives and works in Los Angeles.
Lassry defines his practice as consumed with "pictures" — generic images culled from vintage picture magazines and film archives, redeploying them in a variety of media, including photography, film, drawing and sculpture. Leaving little distance between the commercial and the analytical, he is sometimes described as a post-Pictures Generation artist.
Starting with popular modes of production such as magazine advertising, he uses silk-screening and photography to revive iconic art-historical arrangements, such as the pairing of mother and child or the arrangement of fruit a conventional still life, disrupting their original harmony with geometric displacements or a palette of bright colours. His chromogenic color prints — still life compositions, photocollages, and studio portraits of friends and celebrities — never exceed the dimensions of a magazine page or spread (35 x 28 cm) and are displayed in frames that derive their colors from the dominant hues in the photographs.
Leonid Yakovlevich Mezheritski (Russian: Леонид Яковлевич Межерицкий) was a Soviet, Ukrainian and Israeli artist of the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He is known as a painter who specialized in oil painting, a representative of the South Russian (Odessa) school.
Leonid Mezheritski created mainly plein air landscapes, and also worked in the genres of portraiture and still life. His style was based on the coloristic systems of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. His works can be found in state art museums in Ukraine and private collections in various countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, England, Israel and Russia.
Serge Spitzer was an American artist of Romanian origin. He has worked in Jerusalem, New York and Berlin and is known for his installations, sculptures, photographs and videos.
Serge Spitzer studied at the National University of Art in Bucharest from 1969 to 1972 and then at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem from 1972 to 1974.
In his work, Spitzer has often explored the relationship between art and its context.
Tal Rosenzweig, known as Tal R, is a Danish contemporary artist of Israeli origin.
Tal R studied painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 2001 he received a studio grant from the city of Mönchengladbach. Since 2005 Tal R has been teaching at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art.
Micha Ullman (Hebrew: מיכה אולמן) is an Israeli sculptor and professor of art.
He taught at Bezalel Academy in 1970-1978. He became a visiting professor at Academy of Arts Düsseldorf in 1976. He taught at the University of Haifa from 1979-1989. He was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart from 1991 to 2005.
Ullman created the underground “Empty Library” memorial on Bebelplatz square in Berlin, where the Nazi book burnings began in 1933.
Ullman creates subterranean sculptures, some of which barely protrude from the ground. They touch on universal themes such as the meaning of place and home, absence and emptiness. They have been described as simultaneously "celestial and earthbound, metaphysical but sensual and tactile.
Pola Weizman was a Polish-born Israeli artist, known for her distinctive style of naive art and graphic design. Born in 1939 in Poland, Weizman survived the Holocaust and later emigrated to Israel, where she continued to develop her artistic skills. She studied at the Polytechnic College under notable instructors such as Narkis, Lipman, and Dan Karman, which significantly influenced her approach to art.
Weizman's art often depicted whimsical and vibrant scenes, reflecting the colorful street life of her adopted homeland, Israel. Her works were characterized by their simplicity and the joyful depiction of everyday life, which resonated with many art lovers and collectors. She had a notable one-woman exhibition at the Tel-Aviv Museum in 1970, which helped establish her reputation in the Israeli art scene.
Her artworks have been presented in various auctions, with her paintings often fetching prices that reflect her growing recognition in the art world. Her works are appreciated not only for their artistic value but also for their cultural and historical significance, capturing the spirit of a postwar Israeli society.
Weizman's legacy continues through the circulation of her artworks in galleries and auctions, offering collectors and art enthusiasts opportunities to own a piece of her unique artistic perspective. Her contributions to Israeli art are celebrated for their heartfelt portrayal of life and culture through the lens of a survivor and immigrant.
For those interested in exploring more about Pola Weizman's life and works, staying informed about upcoming auctions and exhibitions can provide valuable insights into her artistic journey and the impact of her works in the realms of naive art and Israeli cultural history.
