Columbia University School of the Arts is proud to announce that alumnus Gilad Ratman (’09) has been chosen to represent Israel at the 2013 Venice Biennale. Ratman, who lives and works in New York and Tel Aviv, is the youngest of the artists selected to represent Israel at this prestigious exhibition.
Gilad Ratman’s works consist of site-specific installations, which engage in social and community structures. His videos and installations push narrative to its limits and allow for a fractured chain of events to take place, as a vehicle for exploring the friction between the real and the imaginary.Nature plays a significant role in Ratman’s work, serving as the backdrop for human interaction. His video and installation works include Give Her Back or Take Me Too (2004), Che Che the Gorgeous (2005), Alligatoriver (2006), The 588 Project (2009), Multipillory (2010).
Gilad Ratman was born in Israel in 1975. Before entering the Visual Arts Program at Columbia University School of the Arts, he studied at the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design in Jerusalem and the School of Visual Arts in New York. His work has been included in dozens of group and solo exhibitions in Israel, New York and worldwide, including MoMA-PS1, the Museum of New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Israel Museum (Jerusalem), Museum Beelden Aan Zee (Haag), Herzliya Museum of Art, The Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv and the Video Art Festival in Beijing.
Ratman has been the recipient of several prestigious art awards, among them the Isracard prize for Israeli Artist from the Tel Aviv Museum in 2007, the Ministry of Culture “Young Artist" Prize in 2006 and the Joshua Rabinuvich Found for the Arts in 2004.
Also at the 2013 Venice Biennale, Visual Arts faculty member Sarah Sze will represent the United States.
