Maayan Sheleff Explained

Maayan Sheleff
Birth Place:	Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality:	Israeli
Occupation:	Art curator
Years Active:	2006–

Maayan Sheleff is an independent art curator and researcher based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Her projects explore social and political issues through participatory practices, at the intersection of art and technology. Sheleff holds a Ph.D. in Practice in Curating in a joint program of the Department of Art at the University of Reading and the postgraduate program in Curating at the Zurich University of the Arts.^[1]

Biography

Sheleff was raised in Kiryat Ono, Israel. She studied plastic arts at the Thelma Yellin High School of Arts, Givatayim. Sheleff graduated Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design with a B.Des in industrial design, also studying at the Rhode Island School of Design and Politecnico di Milano. She later pursued postgraduate studies at the Interdisciplinary Arts Program, Tel Aviv University. She received her PhD from the Curatorial Platform in Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and Reading University, UK.^[2] Sheleff has been regularly teaching at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, department of photography, the International Curatorial Studies Program of the Kibbutzim College, Tel Aviv, at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, Jerusalem and at Sapir Academic College, Sderot. She has been a guest lecturer in many institutions such as HaMidrasha – Faculty of the Arts, and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology's Division of Continuing Education and External Studies curating program.

Curatorial positions

• 2014– Artistic Advisor and chair of artistic committee at the Art Cube Artists' Studios, Jerusalem and curator of its international residency program, LowRes Jerusalem^{[3] [4]}
• 2009–2012 – Curator at the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
• 2009–2012 – Assistant Director at the International Curatorial Studies Program of the Kibbutzim College and the CCA Tel Aviv
• 2006–2009 – Director and chief curator of Line 16, a public gallery for contemporary art^[5]

Awards, grants and residencies

• 2015 – International Curatorial Retreat, organized by Vessel/Mada, Bari, Italy^[6]
• 2014 – Residency Unlimited, NYC^[7]
• 2014 – Quartier 21, Vienna, invited by Paraflows Festival for Digital Art
• 2012 – Truth is Concrete, Steirischer Herbst Festival, Graz, Austria
• 2012–2013 – Artport residency, Tel Aviv
• 2012 – Artis grant recipient
• 2012 – International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) Curator Award
• 2010 – Independent Curators International (ICI) Curatorial Intensive, New York City
• 2010 – Artis grant recipient^[8]

Selected exhibitions

• 2017 – Poland ↔ Israel, Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków (co-curated with Agnieszka Sachar, in collaboration with Miri Segal)^[9]
• 2015 – Preaching to the Choir, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art^[10]
• 2014 – The Infiltrators, Artport Tel Aviv^[11]
• 2013 – The Promised Land, The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan^[12]
• 2012 – Other Lives, Bloomfield Science Museum, Jerusalem, a new-media exhibition inspired by scientist Allan Turing^[13]
• 2012 – Secondary Witness, International Studio & Curatorial Program, Brooklyn, New York City^[14]
• 2012 – Connected, An Exhibition About Girls and the Internet, Bat Yam Promenade
• 2012 – Prolonged Exposure, The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), Tel Aviv^[15]
• 2009–2010 – Co-curator, Transit project, cooperation between The Center for Contemporary Art (CCA), Tel Aviv and MADRE, Naples, Italy^[16]
• 2009 – Co-curator, ARTLV – the 1st Tel Aviv-Yafo Biennial

Selected publications

• 2022 – InConcrete Stones, participating artists: Hannan Abu-Hussein, Nikolaus Eckhard, Avner Pinchover, Christoph Weber, Arkadi Zaides, Art Cube Artists' Studios, Jerusalem^[17]
• 2021 – M/otherland, Ruth Patir & Maayan Sheleff, OnCurating, Zurich.
• 2019 – (Un)Commoning Voices and (Non)Communal Bodies, Maayan Sheleff & Sarah Spies (Eds.), OnCurating, Zurich.
• 2019 – Grand Kenyon, participating artists: Ronit Porat, Guy Konigstein, Art Cube Artists' Studios, Jerusalem.
• 2018 – Rendering Borders, participating artists: Morehshin Allahyari, Lior Zalmanson, Art Cube Artists' Studios, Jerusalem.
• 2017 – Fear and Love in Graz: Steirischer Herbst’s Truth Is Concrete (2012), in Empty Stages, Crowded Flats – Performativity as Curatorial Strategy – Performing Urgency #4, Florian Malzacher and Janna Warsza (Eds.), Alexander Verlag, Berlin^[18]
• 2017 – "Jerusalem of Gold" vs. "The Yelllow Fleet" & "The Day When Nothing Happened", Art Cube Artists' Studios, Jerusalem.
• 2017 – 50 Years, B'Tselem^[19]
• 2016 – »The Infiltrators« – Crossing Borders with Participatory Art,^[20] in Geflüchtete und Kulturelle Bildung Formate und Konzepte für ein neues Praxisfeld, Maren Ziese & Caroline Gritschke (Ed.), Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld.
• 2016 – The Chosen People - A Small Guide For a Big Revolution, a conversation with Andy Bichlbaum from The Yes Men, Tohu online magazine
• 2014 – The Infiltrators, Artport Tel Aviv
• 2012 – Secondary Witness, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP).
• 2012 – World Order, Dana Levy, Braverman Gallery and CCA Tel Aviv.^[21]

External links

• Maayan Sheleff at the Independent Curators International website
• Frankie the Documentation Robot website, a project by Maayan Sheleff, Gal Eshel and Eran Hadas

Further reading

• The Infiltrators: Crossing borders with participatory art by Maayan Sheleff in: Gritschke, Caroline, and Maren Ziese. 2016. Geflüchtete und kulturelle Bildung Formate und Konzepte für ein neues Praxisfeld. Pp 123–130. Bielefeld: transcript.
• Fear and Love in Graz by Maayan Sheleff in: Florian Malzacher and Janna Warsza (ed.), 2017. Empty Stages, Crowded Flats. Performativity as Curatorial Strategy, Performing Urgency No. 4, Berlin: House on Fire, Live Art Development Agency & Alexander Verlag.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Postgraduate Programme in Curating Zürich . 2024-03-17 . www.curating.org.
2. https://www.curating.org/maayan-sheleff/ Maayan Sheleff, Echoing with a Difference––Curating Voices and the Politics of Participation, at the page of the PhD in Contemporary Curating program
3. http://www.artiststudiosjlm.org/members-of-artistic-committee.html Members of artistic committee
4. http://www.artiststudiosjlm.org/151414931499150414971514-1513149214931514-148815021503-148914971504150014881493150214971514--lowres-jerusalem.html LowRes Jerusalem international residency program
5. תערוכה חדשה בגלריה קו 16 (New exhibition at the Line 16 Gallery), City Mouse, 9 April 2006
6. http://www.vesselartproject.org/en/2015/03/11/icr-2015-curatori-selezionati/ ICR 2015 – selected curators
7. http://residencyunlimited.org/residencies/maayan-sheleff/ 2014 | NYC | Curator: Maayan Sheleff
8. http://artis.art/grantees/maayan-sheleff-curatorial-intensive-curating-in-the-public-realm/ Maayan Sheleff grantee page
9. https://en.mocak.pl/poland-israel Poland ↔ Israel exhibition page
10. http://www.herzliyamuseum.co.il/english/september-2015/preaching-to-the-choir/about Preaching to the Choir exhibition page
11. http://cargocollective.com/INFILTRATORS The Infiltrators exhibition website
12. http://embassies.gov.il/tokyo-en/NewsAndEvents/calendar-of-events/Pages/Yebisu-International-Festival-for-Art-and-Alternative-Visions.aspx The Promised Land exhibition page
13. https://www.mada.org.il/en/exhibitions/other-lives Other Lives exhibition page
14. http://iscp-nyc.org/event/secondary-witness Secondary Witness exhibition page
15. http://cca.org.il/en/prolonged-exposure/ Prolonged Exposure exhibition page
16. http://cca.org.il/en/transit-3/ Transit project page
17. Web site: InConcrete Stones . 2022-04-20 . Art Cube Artists' Studios . en.
18. Web site: EMPTY STAGES, CROWDED FLATS - Alexander Verlag . 2022-04-20 . www.alexander-verlag.com.
19. Web site: 3 November 2017 . “50 Years”: Fifty portraits of Palestinians born in 1967 in B’Tselem photography exhibition . B'Tselem.
20. Web site: transcript . Geflüchtete und Kulturelle Bildung . 2022-04-20 . transcript Verlag . de.
21. Web site: World Order . 2022-04-20 . Sternthal Books . en-US.