Gaston Zvi Ickowicz
Gastón Zvi Ickowicz is an Israeli visual artist living and working in Tel Aviv.
Biography
Gaston Ickowicz immigrated to Israel from Argentina in 1980 at the age of 6. He studied photography at Naggar School of Photography, Media, New Music, Visual Communication and Phototherapy in Musrara, Jerusalem from 1997 till 2000. Ickowicz received MFA in art and photography from Bezalel School of Arts and Design in 2008. Ickowicz works are in permanent collections of Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Haifa Museum of Art, Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem, Ashdod Art Museum and private collections.Work
Ickowicz mainly works in video and photography and centers on the interaction between people and landscape in a socio-political context. His work entertains a dialogue with the Israeli sphere and touches some of the conflicts it contains.The difference between "landscape" and "place" is one of Ickowics's main subjects.
His work examines the relations between these two concepts, as well as their potential to change following their definition as such and the perspective from which they are viewed.
He is interested in how the photographic act can transform a landscape, which may only be examined as a static image, into a place with a dynamic quality, an act that enables him to study various components of the landscapes identity.
Ickowicz captures sights and traces that remain in the aftermath of various events; a spent bonfire, a scorched field burnt in the course of a military bombing, an avalanche in the desert, rocks used to create a roadblock, or the ruins of an ancient settlement.
This strategy documents the traces of different processes and events that took place in the past, and is directed at exploring definitions of memory, history, and culture as they are revealed through the signs captured by the camera.
The journeys in which these images are taken are also related to a more general existential state, which involves a search for roots and for a sense of belonging. In this context, the concept of time is expanded: inevitably, the present, or "here-and-now" captured in these works, is viewed in relation to a chronological axis that constantly echoes the past.
Exhibitions
Solo
2003 Buenos Aires – Good Air, Hagar Gallery, Jaffa2005 Chapters from a Settlement, Haifa Museum of Art2007 The Pale, Tavi Dresdner Gallery, Tel Aviv2008 The Pale, Habres & Partner Gallery, Vienna2010 Cubit, Span, Foot, Chelouche Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv2011 "B.C.", Tel Aviv Museum of Art 2012 Untitled, Department of Photographic Communication Gallery, Hadassah Academic College, Jerusalem2013 The Rock and the Stone, Bazel Gallery, Tel Aviv2015 "Everyday Ceremonies", Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv 2016 "Nesting", Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv2017 "The Earth is Heavy, and its Weight Pulls Downwards". "La Cite International des Arts", Paris.Group
2017- Since the Breath of Primeval Time. Inga Gallery for Contemporary Art. Tel Aviv
- VideoVideo: Video Art Festival, Burgundy, France
- Deads Lands, NurtureArt Gallery, New York
- Visions of Places, Center for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Towson, Maryland
- Double Exposure, Project #2, The Shpilman Institute for Photography, Tel Aviv
- Secular Judaism, Nahum Gutman Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
- Collecting Dust in Contemporary Israeli Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Vacatio, Fotografia: International Photography Festival, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome
- Beyond No-Man's Land: Journey Across a Landscape of Identities, Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York
- Another Place: Artists Respond to Outdoor Works by Itzhak Danziger, Dana Gallery, Yad Mordechai
- Teen Spirit / Musrara: A Social Manifesto, GRID 2012: International Photography Biennale, Amsterdam
- Making Room: Contemporary Israeli Photography, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
- Southern Spirit, The Negev Museum of Art, Beersheba
- Work in Progress, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Comes with the Territory, Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Charim Ungar Contemporary, Berlin
- Grandfather Paradox, Chelouche Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
- Neighbors, Chelouche Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
- Neues Sehen: Young Israeli Art, Syker Vorwerk Center for Contemporary Art, Germany; Dollinger Art Project, Tel Aviv
- Contemporary Israeli Art: The Current Generation, Municipal Museum, Bremen, Germany
- Silverstein Photography Annual: Curatorial Nominees, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York
- Art of the State: Contemporary Photography and Video from Israel, Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam
- Real Time: Art in Israel 1998-2008, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Displacements, MoBY – David Ben-Ari Museum for Contemporary Art, Bat Yam
- Bare Life, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem
- Engagement: Israeli Photography Now, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- The Making of a City, Ashdod Art Museum, Ashdod
- Disengagement, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
- A Road to Nowhere, Ashdod Art Museum, Ashdod
- Other Voices, Other Rooms, Le Ciminiere Exhibition Center, Catania, Sicily Puntos Cardinales, PS122, New York
- Nazar: Noorderlicht Foundation Photofestival, Groningen, the Netherlands;
Field of Depth, Latin Collector, New York
2003
- The Photography Biennale of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Awards and scholarships
2003- Artist-Teacher Scholarship, Ministry of Culture and Sport
- America-Israel Cultural Foundation Prize
- The Gérard Lévy Prize for a Young Photographer, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Young Artist Award, Ministry of Culture and Sport