User:RebeccaSternberg/sandbox/Gil Marco Shani



Gil Marco Shani (born 1968) is a painter, installation artist educator, who lives and works in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Biography
Gil Marco Shani was born and raised in Tel Aviv in 1968 to Aaron and Leah Shani. He graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Bachelor of Arts (1994), studied Art Studies at the Slade School, London (1994) and Shoe Design at Afpic Vocational Training School, Paris (1998).

Gil Marco-Shani, is a painter and installation artist. He has received numerous awards including the Gottesdiener Art Prize for Young Artists 2008 and the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art 2018. His paintings are part of the permanent collections of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Israel Museum of Art, Jerusalem and private collectors in Israel and abroad.

In 1994 he participated in 'Transit' as part of 'Art Focus' exhibit, and in 1997 he participated in 'Decorative Attendants', which merged human presence with exhibition objects in 'Threshold' (the "Young Artists Exhibitions" series) held at the Israel Museum, curated by Sarit Shapira. This series dedicated to installation art was a milestone in the development of installation art in Israel in the 1990s. In 1999, Shani's solo exhibition 'Friendship' was held at the Dvir Gallery and in 2001 Shani built "Safari" an installation as part of "Helena" (with Avner Ben-Gal and Ohad Meromi), an exhibit at the Helena Rubinstein Contemporary Art Pavilion, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. This show was seminal in formulating contemporary trends in the Israeli installation art.

Since Shani works across two fields: painting and installation art. His paintings feature a schematic outline on a uniform background, and they mark events, many of which bubble under the surface of polite culture. Shani's superb installations are challenging architectural interventions implanted in the heart of the museum and examine the basic assumptions of the museum experience in all its aspects. The spaces he created, such as: motel rooms, tropical forest, nightly stairway or enclosed bus depot, are surprising environments, charged and rich in details. Shani succeeds in surprising visitors each time in an artificial environment, full of beauty that is enveloped by a petrifying silence and feelings of threat and anxiety. The ambitious installation 'Buses' exhibited at the Israel Museum in 2018 is the culmination of Shani's work and one of the important achievements.

Shani is a faculty member and senior lecturer at the Art Department, Academy of Arts and Design. In 2018, his son Lev was born in Tel Aviv, co-parented with Renan Masinson.

Selected Solo Exhibitions
— 'Decorative Attendants', installation at the exhibition Threshold (part of the Chapter: Young Israeli Artists Exhibition Series), The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Curated by Sarit Shapira — 'Safari', installation at the exhibition 'Helena', Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Curated by Ellen Ginton (catalogue) — 'Redbreast', Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv — 'L’entreprise', Forde Art Gallery, Geneva
 * 1996: 'Erasure of Hand' (with Ram Samocha), Borochov Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 1997: 'Pig', Mary Fauzi Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 1999: 'Friendship', Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 2001: 'Recent Works' (with Uri Tzaig), Kojimachi Gallery, Tokyo
 * 2003: 'Rain', installation at ArtFocus 4, Museum of Underground Prisoners, Jerusalem; Curated by Suzanne Landau and Yigal Zalmona (catalogue)
 * 2007: 'Dome', artist’s book, published by Revolver Press, Frankfurt, Germany
 * 2009: 'Blue Paintings', exhibition of Nathan Gottesdiener, Foundation Award laureate, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Curated by Ellen Ginton (catalogue)
 * 2011: 'Stairway', installation at The Second Strike Herzliya Biennale, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art; Curated by Ori Dessau (catalogue)
 * 2014: 'Belgrade', Tempo Rubato Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 2018: 'Buses', The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Curated by Aya Miron (catalogue)

Selected Group Exhibitions
— 'Wall Flowers', Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya; Curated by Arik Miranda (catalogue) — First International Art Biennial, Buenos Aires — Summer Exhibition, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv —'I Hate You in June', Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod; Curated by Ulli Knall and Patricia Ellis —'Labyrinth', Botkyrka Konsthall, Stockholm; Curated by Pia Sandström and Joanna Sandell —'Installation view', The Israel Museum, Jerusalem — 'Potent Wilderness': Works from the Igal Ahouvi Art Collection, The Genia Schreiber University Art Gallery, Tel Aviv University; Curated by Sarit Shapira (catalogue) —'Same Same But Different': From the Haaretz Collection, Minus1 Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curated by Efrat Livny (catalogue) — Yael’s Dream and Nightmares, Art+Text Gallery, Budapest; Curated by Nicola Trezzi
 * 1994: 'Transit': ArtFocus 1, New Central Bus Station, Tel Aviv; Curated by Sarit Shapira (catalogue)
 * 1996: 'Lost and Found', Mary Fauzi Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 1998: 'Spring at the End of Summer', Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Curated by Ellen Ginton
 * 2000: 'Ladies and Gentlemen: Contemporary Israeli Art', Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Curated by Ellen Ginton
 * 2001: 'Israeli Art Today', The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan; Curated by Galia Bar Or and Itaru Hirano
 * 2002: 'Gallery Swap', Sadie Coles HQ Gallery, London 2002–03 Chilufim—Exchange of Artists and Art: Israel–Nordrhein–Westfale, Kunstmuseum Bonn; Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld; Museum am Ostwall Dortmund, Germany; Curated by Susan Landau, Dalia Levin, Micha Levin, Dieter Ronte, Martin Hentschel, and Ingo Bartsch (catalogue)
 * 2004: 'The Mediterraneans', MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome; Curated by Sarit Shapira
 * 2005: 'Such Stuff as Dreams are Made Of: Contemporary Israeli Art', Chelsea Art Museum, New York; Curated by Manon Slome (catalogue)
 * 2006: 'Once Upon A Time... : Contemporary Fairytale', ARCOS—Museum of Contemporary Art in Sannio, Benevento, Italy; Curated by Dobrila Denegri(catalogue)
 * 2007: 'Fleeing Away From What Bothers You Most', Magasin III, Stockholm; Curated by Sarit Shapiraand Elisabeth Millqvist
 * 2008: Real Time: Sixty Years of Art in Israel, The Sixth Decade, 1998–2008, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Curated by Amitai Mendelsohn and Efrat Natan (catalogue)
 * 2009: Show of Shows and Recent Works, Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 2010: Reviewing Works that Matter, Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 2011: Life: A User’s Manual, The Ruth Youth Wing, TheIsrael Museum, Jerusalem; Curated by Aya Miron (catalogue)
 * 2012: 'Regards sur l’art contemporain israélien', Villa Emerige, Paris; Curated by Nathalie Mamane Cohen and Nathalie Zaquin Boulakia
 * 2013: 'Time of Humane Experience', Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
 * 2014: 'The Drawing Room', Magasin III, Stockholm; Curated by David Neuman
 * 2015: 'In Wonderland', Tempo Rubato Gallery, Harlem, New York
 * 2016: 'Critically Correct / Power Misused', Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
 * 2017: '1967 Turns 50': Wartime Art, Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod; Curated by Dana Arieli

Prizes and Grants
— National Lottery Council for the Arts grant for publishing an artist’s book
 * 1994: Mary Fisher Prize, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design
 * 1999: The Young Artist Award, Israel’s Ministry of Science, Culture and Sports
 * 2001: Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Tel Aviv–Yafo municipality
 * 2003: Beatrice Kolliner Prize for a Young Israeli Artist, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
 * 2004: America–Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship
 * 2005: The Shmuel Givon Prize, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
 * 2008: Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
 * 2017: Outset Israel grant

Artist Books and Catalogs

 * 2000: "Friendship", Dvir Gallery
 * 2001: Safari / Safari, Tel Aviv Museum
 * 2001: Bird Watching School / Birding School, Tel Aviv Museum
 * 2007 Dome Gil Marco Shani, Revolver Press
 * 2018: Buses, Israel Museum | English Buses Catalog, Buses Hebrew Catalog