Prof. Yehudit Sasportas, Bezalel Senior Lecturer, Honored with 2024 Zila Yaron Prize

Prof. Yehudit Sasportas, a multidisciplinary artist and senior lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts and the Master’s Program in Fine Arts, is the winner of the Zila Yaron Prize for Israeli Art for 2024, presented by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod.

Sasportas is a respected and award-winning artist who lives and works in Berlin and Tel Aviv. Maintaining a high professional and international commitment, she holds numerous solo exhibitions around the world. Her work is characterized by site-specific sculptural installations consisting of sculptural works, drawings, video and sound works, that call for a total and intense sensory experience. Her sculptural installations, which undergo a process of adapting and responding to the surrounding architecture of the buildings in which they are exhibited, have become, over the course of 28 years of activity, artworks that present a new way of reading architecture itself as well as the wider cultural context they were created in. Her sculptural installations deal with the fascinating correspondence that takes place between the subconscious, unspoken and unseen materials, and the way these layers of information activate consciousness on the surface.

The 150,000 NIS prize, will allow the artist a year of focused work on her new project “Liquid Desert.” She discussed the project with Haaretz: “’Liquid Desert’ is an unusual art project in its operation and appearance in the public space, which seeks to reflect the contents of our hidden collective subconscious space into the space of consciousness and visible physical reality, and in this way to bring up unresolved conflicts and instances of fracture and tension. For years, I have been engaged in the artistic mapping of the subconscious and the data stored within it as an active life force, but imprisoned in time. I do this through works of sculpture, photography, and sound in charged marginal zones that exist in the urban space and in nature. The goal is to articulate the charged non-verbal sensory experience.”

From the committee’s reasons: “From the very beginning of her career in the mid-1990s, Sasportas has stood out. She was the youngest teacher at Bezalel, and since then, teaching art has been her second artistic medium. For three decades, she has established herself as one of the leading artists in an artistic language that she developed and in the diversity of mediums that spans drawing, sculpture, and video, which come together in all-encompassing installations. Over the course of thirty years, she has left a deep mark on generations of creators, out of a deep personal commitment to the processes of teaching and guidance.”

Sasportas, on the prize: “I am very happy about the formulation of this new and important prize. This new prize addresses an important and significant stage in the life of every creator in a long and multifaceted creative journey in our field. This is very exciting and happy news that certainly shines a light, especially in these days. I thank the members of the central committee and the recommendation of the members of the broader committee for their decision, and of course for the establishment of this prize.”The prize was initiated by the family of the late Zila Yaron, an art collector and beloved and respected figure in the local art field, who passed away this year. Yaron worked diligently to promote Israeli art, while providing financial assistance and support to artists and making their works accessible to wide and diverse audiences. This is the first year of what will be an annual prize. Giora Yaron, Zila Yaron’s husband:  “For us, the prize symbolizes a commitment to promoting Israeli art and supporting artists, a goal Zila worked towards her entire life. Yehudit is a brilliant artist who represents the essence of Israeli creativity, and I look forward to seeing the continuation of her extensive work.”