Yan Bolotov Wins the 2024 Rywkind Ben Zour Prize

The artist, Yan Bolotov is the 2024 winner of the first Rywkind Ben Zour Prize. The prize is awarded through the Master’s Program in Fine Arts in collaboration with the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where Bolotov’s final project will be displayed. Honorable Mentions were awarded to artists and fellow graduates of the program, Oran Maestro Segal and Idan Sestieri Lavie. 

The Rywkind Ben Zour Prize will be awarded annually to graduates of Bezalel’s Master’s Program in Fine Arts, and includes a grant of NIS 40,000 from Iris Rywkind and Eran Ben Zour, as well as the selection of the student’s artwork for inclusion in the permanent collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. In addition, within three years of receiving the prize, the selected artwork will be displayed in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art as part of a group exhibition, in the permanent exhibit of Israeli art, or in a solo exhibition.  

The purpose of the prize is to encourage the personal, artistic and professional growth of the most recent batch of Bezalel graduates in the Master’s Program in Fine Arts. The prize is intended to nurture their creativity at this unique time, as they venture forth on their individual paths as independent and active participants in the art world, and to encourage excellence in the field of contemporary art with an emphasis on original and ground-breaking work.  

Yan Bolotov won the 2024 Rywkind Ben Zour Prize for, among other things, his work entitled “Order no. 273196121229,” which is currently on display in the Bezalel graduate exhibition. Using artificial lighting, sound and various architectural elements, Bolotov created an installation that simulates a waiting room with a single bench and a triptych of frosted windows, through which you can see the cycle of sunset and sunrise. In the last decade, Bolotov’s works have encompassed the fields of video art, video clips, short films and documentary photography.  

From the committee's review: “Bolotov’s work makes unique work of light and sound as a sculptural material, and draws a line between Mark Rothko’s vibrating color field paintings and James Turrell’s fantastic light installations. Bolotov produces a sensitive and intelligent encounter between the technological and the spiritual, through the worlds of clubs and popular culture and echoes the tension between the metaphysical and the real. In a subversive manner, Bolotov occasionally chooses to shatter the illusion of the image and reveal the “behind-the-scenes” of the creation. He turns the moment of revelation into a moment of material discovery, in which the ‘engine room’ of the image is exposed, interpreted as a moment of enlightenment and awakening.”  

The members of the 2024 judging committee include: Mira Lapidot, Chief Curator, Dalit Matatyahu, Senior Curator for Israeli Art, and Anat Danon Sivan, Director and Curator of the Prints and Drawings Department. Observers: Iris Rywkind Ben Zour and Professor Dor Guez. 

As part of the selection process of 2024’s winning work, the members of the judging committee toured the program’s graduate exhibition and reviewed all the portfolios of the graduating class. The purpose was to deepen the professional dialogue between the museum’s curatorial team and the program’s graduates and to expose the contemporary generation of artists and their work to the local and international art scene. The judging committee also awarded honorable mentions to graduates Idan Sestieri Lavie and Oran Maestro Segal. 

Professor Dor Guez, head of Bezalel’s Master’s Program in Fine Arts: “The Rywkind Ben Zour Prize formalizes the longstanding relationship between the Bezalel Master’s Program in Fine Arts and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. As part of the selection process, the museum’s curatorial team conducted an in-depth discussion with us about all the works by the students featured in the graduates’ exhibition currently displayed at 119 Herzl, Tel Aviv. In addition to the generous financial grant, the award allows the program’s graduate to exhibit the winning work in one of the world’s leading art museums and to be included in the museum’s contemporary art collection. I congratulate Yan on this significant win and sincerely thank Iris Rywkind and Eran Ben Zour for their substantial contribution. I wish our graduates much success.” 

The vision of the founders of the prize, Iris Rywkind and Eran Ben Zour, focuses on the unique relationship forged between two long-standing and key art institutions in Israel, both of which have achieved prestigious status and broad international recognition – the Master’s Program in Fine Arts at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. This is also an opportunity for the founders of the prize to strengthen, promote and encourage the bond between academia and the museum scene in Israel.