Winter Sun, 2008
Corten steel
Diameter, 295 cm

artist profile

Zadok Ben-David

born

1949

lives and works

London, UK

education

Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel, 1973
Reading University, Reading, UK, 1975
St. Martin’s School of Art, London, UK, 1976

about the artist

The most recent large-scale survey of Zadok Ben-David’s work, Human Nature at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel, resulted in an exhibition attendance that broke all records of the museum’s entire thirty-year history. The popularity of his graphic work no doubt stems from Ben-David’s sculptural hypothesis that considers man’s place in the world. Nature, the forms of its flora or foliage derived and adopted from botanical diagrams and scientific illustrations, is alternately at odds or in harmony with the humans who live within it. Ben-David conflates the two-dimensional with the three-dimensional in his sculptures, as if he were drawing them in midair. Precisely rendered silhouettes throw compelling shadows onto the ground; just like an unexpected afterthought happening upon the initial proposal, these residual shapes seem to tell a fantasy of their own. Born in Bayhan, Yemen, Ben-David now divides his time between the United Kingdom and Israel. Recipient of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Sculpture Prize in 2005 and the Grande Biennial Prémio at the 14th Biennale Internacional de Arte de Vila Nova de Cerveira in Portugal in 2007, the artist had previously represented Israel at the 43rd Venice Biennale in 1988. Major retrospectives of his work have been held at the Guangdong Art Museum in Guangzhou, China, as well as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, as mentioned above. He has also participated in group exhibitions staged at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy; the Haifa Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel; the Ewha Art Centre in Seoul, South Korea; the Singapore Museum of Art in Singapore; the Leopold Hoesch Museums in Düren, Germany; the Institute of Contemporary Art in San Jose, USA; the Musée Bourdelle in Paris, France; the Museum of Modern Art in Dubrovnik, Croatia; and many more. 

Website: http://www.zadokbendavid.com

  • Selected exhibition history
  • Permanent collections
  • Projects
  • Editions
  • Publications
  • Recent news

2011GROUP Roundabout, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel

2010GROUP Living in Evolution: Busan Biennale, Korea

SOLO Blackfield, 1918 Art Space Warehouse, Shanghai, China

2009SOLO Human Nature, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel

2008GROUP Dreams, Passage de Retz, Paris, France

GROUP Animal and Nature, Chateau des Bousval, Belgium

SOLO Four Seasons, Sotheby’s, Hanover Square, London, UK

GROUP Wonder: Singapore Biennale, Singapore

2007GROUP Sequences & Repetition, Brunel Arts Centre, Brunel University, London, UK

GROUP Rummage: Sculptors’ Drawings, The Winchester Gallery, University of Southampton

SOLO Invisible Reality, Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou; China Oroom Foundation, Seoul, Korea

GROUP Animal, Kunst im Schloss, Untergroningen, Germany

2006GROUP Fatamorgana, Haifa Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel

2003GROUP Science Fiction, Singapore Museum of Art, Singapore

SOLO Magica Realta, Galleria Civica d’arte Moderna e Conteporanea, Saint Vincent, Aosta, Italy

SOLO Evolution and Theory, The Forum, Villa Nova de Cerveira, Portugal

2002GROUP Thinking big, Concept for 21st Century British Sculpture, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy

Berardo Collection, Portugal

Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel

West Collection, USA

ZADOK BEN-DAVID | Major installations presented at National Museum of Kazakhstan

The National Museum of Kazakhstan is currently presenting an impressive exhibition of major works by Zadok Ben-David. [more]