Ron Asulin is the Recipient of the Ilana Elovic - Bezalel Prize for Excellence in the Arts 2024

Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem together with Dr. Eugene Elovic and his family are proud to announce Ron Asulin as the recipient of the Ilana Elovic Bezalel Prize for Excellence in the Arts for 2024. Ron graduated with honors from Bezalel Academy’s Department of Fine Arts (2018) and received his MFA from UCLA (2024).

According to the Selection Committee: “Ron is a sculptor who creates various interferences within existing elements or found objects, infusing them with new ideas or narratives. His work incorporates social, cultural and political tensions through the disruption or infiltration of existing structures in which he manages to evoke a sense of detachment. The committee members recognized his unique voice and continuous search for relevant patterns for the current artistic discourse and for what transpires in histories and regions, which are uncomfortable to reflect or represent. He does this through the use of distinct and precise measures that result in an original sculptural language that expresses chronic subversion as a constant situation, raising questions of hyper-organized violent codependency as a camouflage mechanism, of organized violence and tension or rifts as newly-found orders.”

Selection Committee Members: Chair – Jossef Krispel, Head of the Department of Fine Arts; Prof. Sharon Yaari, lecturer in the Department of Photography; Prof. Yehudit Sasportas, lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts; and Adi Dahan, Associate Curator at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, as public representative.

The prize ceremony in the presence of Dr. Eugene Elovic and his family will take place on November 4, at the Ilana Elovic Gallery on the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Campus.

Ilana Elovic passed away in 2006 after battling cancer. Ilana dedicated her life to art, and worked in different mediums, including painting, ceramics, glass and jewelry design. Upon learning of her illness, Ilana devoted herself almost exclusively to her artistic work.

The prize in memory of Ilana is intended to help and encourage young artists at the start of their careers and is awarded to graduates of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, up to 7 years from their graduation.

Previous prize recipients are: Essa Grayeb (2023), Danielle Kaganov (2022), Tal Engelstein (2021), Asaf Alcalay (2018), Oree Holban (2017), Esther Schneider (2016), Yitzhak Golombek (2014) and Amnon Ben Ami (2012).