Moshe Gershuni
Encyclopedia
Early life
Moshe Gershuni was born in 1936 in Tel AvivTel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
in the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents Yona and Zvi Kutner immigrated there from Poland in the 1920s. He spent his childhood in Tel Aviv and graduated from the local religious high school in 1954. He has two siblings; a brother named Avshalom and a sister named Mira. From 1960 to 1964 he studied at the Avni Institute of Art and Design
Avni Institute of Art and Design
The Avni Institute of Art and Design is an Israeli art school located in Tel Aviv. The institute is known for teaching and employing many well known Israeli artists and designers....
, an Israeli art school
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...
located in Tel Aviv.
Moshe Gershuni was one of the first artists in Israel to explore highly modernistic, iconoclastic possibilities, at the end of the 1960s creating works which were paradigms of Conceptual art, and in the 1970s extending his art to public performance. As a stimulating teacher in Bezalel
Bezalel
In Exodus 31:1-6, Bezalel |transcribed]] as Betzalel and most accurately as Beẓal'el), is the chief artisan of the Tabernacle. Elsewhere in the Bible the name occurs only in the genealogical lists of the Book of Chronicles, but according to cuneiform inscriptions a variant form of the same,...
, he fueled the imagination of many young artists, especially towards political involvement. At the Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
in 1980, Gershuni showed paintings on paper in red lacquer, amidst canals of blood, creating an atmosphere of Holocaust. Immediately afterwards he began a period of painting which stands out as a milestone in Israeli art. Using free scrawl, drip, finger paint and calligraphy, he suggests personal, Zionist, Moslem and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
symbols. These works seem to have been created in a trance. His recent silk screens ("Kaddish") are among the finest produced in the country in recent years.
Teaching
- 1972-77 Bezalel Academy of Art and DesignBezalel Academy of Art and DesignBezalel Academy of Art and Design is Israel's national school of art, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. It is named for the Biblical figure Bezalel, son of Uri , who was appointed by Moses to oversee the design and construction of the Tabernacle ....
, Jerusalem - 1978 Art Teachers College, Ramat HasharonRamat HasharonRamat HaSharon is a city located on Israel's central coastal strip in the south of the Sharon region, bordering Tel Aviv to the south and Herzliya and Kibbutz Glil Yam to the north. It is part of the Tel Aviv District, within Gush Dan metropolitan area...
Awards and Prizes
- Aika Brown Prize, Israel MuseumIsrael MuseumThe Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
, 1969 - Sandberg Prize for an Israeli Artist, Israel Museum, 1982
- Minister of Education and Culture Prize for a Young Artist, 1988
- Kolb Prize, Tel Aviv Museum, 1989
- Sussman Prize, Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, 1995 - Mendel and Eva Pondik Prize, Tel Aviv Museum
- George and Janet Jaffin Prize Since America-Israel Cultural Foundation, 2000
Career
After graduating in 1964 from the Avni Institute of Art and DesignAvni Institute of Art and Design
The Avni Institute of Art and Design is an Israeli art school located in Tel Aviv. The institute is known for teaching and employing many well known Israeli artists and designers....
he worked as a professor at various art schools. From 1972 to 1977 he worked as a professor at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Israel's national school of art
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...
. From 1978 to 1986 he taught at the Art Teachers Training College, in Ramat HaSharon.