Nir Hod Explained

Nir Hod
Birth Date:1970
Birth Place:Tel Aviv
Education:Bezalel Academy of Art and Design,
Cooper Union School of Art
Known For:Painting, sculpture, video art

Nir Hod (born 1970) is an Israeli visual artist, based in New York. He works in the mediums of painting, sculpture, and video art.

Life and work

Nir Hod was born in 1970, in Tel Aviv, Israel. Hod studied at Jerusalem's Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and New York City's Cooper Union School of Art.[1]

He began his career in video, works in sculpture but is known for his high realism paintings.[2] His work investigates old notions of hyper-seriousness and personal authenticity.[3] Hod's realistic takes on rakish narcissism examine androgyny, identity, sexual confusion, and excess.[4] As Richard Vine wrote in the catalogue for Hod’s survey exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, “From the beginning of his career, Nir Hod has opposed the ideology that labels sumptuousness an esthetic sin. His work openly substitutes the pleasure principle and a fluid multiplicity of selves for the old notions of high seriousness and personal authenticity.” In his recent series of “Genius” paintings and sculptures,[5] Hod depicted aristocratic young men and women whose cherubic cheeks contrast with their scornful expressions and smoldering cigarettes.

For his solo exhibition at Paul Kasmin Gallery, Mother, Hod created a series of paintings that reference the iconic photograph, taken by the Nazi photographer Franz Konrad, of Nazi soldiers clearing out the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War. Although most of the scholarship and speculation about this photograph has centered on the identity of the young boy with his arms raised, Hod’s paintings focus on the woman in profile closest to the photographer. By removing this faceless and often overlooked woman from the historical context of the original photograph, he asks the viewer to consider who she was and to imagine the life that she could have had. Hod depicts her posing or dancing against a lush, cinematically lit background, a beautiful handbag draped across her arm. Alluring and fashionable, the woman in these paintings has completely escaped from the horrible reality of the original photograph.

Solo exhibitions

Press

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Artist Profiles: Nir Hod. Artis.
  2. News: Becker . Noah . March 2012 . Mother: Interview with Nir Hod . Whitehot Magazine.
  3. News: Nir Hod, "Mother". Time Out New York. March 15, 2012.
  4. News: Schlank. Joey. Artist Profile: Nir Hod. Gotham. June 20, 2011.
  5. Web site: "Genius" at Paul Kasmin Gallery.
  6. Web site: Nir Hod's New Show at Kohn Gallery Realizes a New Painterly Depth for the Artist . Galerie Magazine. 16 July 2020 .
  7. Web site: "Mother" at Paul Kasmin Gallery.
  8. Web site: "Nova 7" at Alon Segev. ArtNews.
  9. Web site: "Faded Heartache" at Davide Gallo. Whitehot Magazine.
  10. Web site: Nir Hod, "You Are Not Alone" at Jack Shainman Gallery.

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