The Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art has announced that artist Haviv Kaptzon will be the 2022 recipient of the Keshet Award for Contemporary Art, founded by the Bar-Gil Avidan family.
The award exhibition at the Herzliya Museum will be curated by Nathanja van Dijk, an art researcher and independent curator, and former director of the Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Van Dijk came to Israel to conduct the selection process for the Keshet Award winner. “Kaptzon proposed a cohesive interdisciplinary approach that combines a futuristic utopian vision with a sober cultural view of the present,” she said. “The project makes skillful use of an original visual lexicon that draws on popular culture and classical art, and distills a poetic language filled with humor that places existential questions at its center.”
Kaptzon, born in 1983, holds a master’s degree in art from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, and a bachelor’s degree in art from Shenkar – Engineering, Design, and Art, Ramat Gan. He has held solo exhibitions at Kav 16 Gallery, Tel Aviv; the Artists’ Studios, Tel Aviv; and Alfred Gallery, Tel Aviv. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon; Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and Ashdod Art Museum.
The proposed exhibition is based on a fictional play by the artist, which combines emotive expressions and the macabre, and mixes the philosophical with the mundane. The exhibition will include video works, sound, treated objects, and drawings.
Kaptzon’s solo exhibition, curated by Van Dijk, is scheduled to be open toward the end of 2023 at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art.