Hagai Ulrich

Hagai Ulrich, a graduate of Bezalel's Master's Program in Fine Arts (M.F.A., 2015) in Tel-Aviv, and Hamidrasha Faculty of Arts, Beit-Berl College (2012), is a Tel-Aviv-based, Israeli-Austrian artist, who has exhibited his works in Israel and abroad, a writer about photography and contemporary art, and an independent curator. Since 2016 he has been working as the editorial coordinator of Tohu Magazine, an online art magazine for art and culture published in three languages: English, Hebrew, and Arabic (co-editors and co-founders: Avi Lubin and Leah Avir). For the past four years, he has co-curated the "Bread and Roses" shows, and in the past year has been the curator of Bread and Roses Gallery in Tel-Aviv and its manager. Ulrich has won the TIAF Scholarship, Tel Aviv University (2019); a Certificate of Excellence in Bezalel's Master of Arts Program (2015); a TA Scholarship of the Bezalel Master of Arts Program (2014); And an Award for Excellence in Art by the Hamidrasha Faculty of Arts, Beit-Berl College (2012).

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A Tourist in Your Own Home: a Conversation with Shasha Dothan

The artist Shasha Dothan has recently curated a virtual show of works addressing the sense of alienation experienced by immigrants, of which she is one. Hagai Ulrich spoke with her about the show and her works, in which she rows a canoe across her living room, invites a male stripper to an apartment, and erects a tent-installation where she hosts works by immigrant women.

On Knots, Connections, and Games of Chance

"Gambling, risk-taking, and games of chance are inherent in the way a structure, for instance, a body, can swing between activity and passivity, between control and submission to fate or to another entity." Hagai Ulrich on the sculptures of Daniel Oksenberg in the exhibition "Sweaty Grips."

Optical Illusions

Hagai Ulrich talks with Oran Hoffmann about perception, photography, perspective, and optical illusions, about Cézanne, Albers, Vasarely, and about performativity in photography, following Hoffmann's exhibition "Love-Sick Heart," which had recently been shown at The Lobby - Art Space. 

Whose Land is It?

In her on-going multidisciplinary project, "The Road to Ein Harod," Efrat Galnoor tracks the journey undertaken by Raffi, the protagonist of Amos Kenan's novel with the same title. In a series of exhibitions and events, she raises political questions about borders and freedom of movement, and looks reflexively at the way space is constructed by way of stains – an act that questions not only what you look at, but how.

 

Local Photography

Why wasn't the work of local photographers being taught at Bezalel Academy's photography department, in its various iterations over the years? Did local photography, dealing with the connection between people and place, exist? Hagai Ulrich examines the history of local photography following the publication of Noa Sadka's book, Photographic Truth is a Natural Truth – a Chronicle of a Photography Department.

First Daughter of the Confederacy

Efrat Vital's show, Winnie (Real Daughter), presented recently at the Herzliya Artists' Residence, brings to the fore the denial and suppression of the problematic history of racism, slavery, and Colonialism in the southern part of the United States. Hagai Ulrich has visited the show, and he suggests thinking about it from a local point of view as well.

Obvious Artifice

"Pre-Israeli Orientalism: A Photographic Portrait", written by Dor Guez, focuses on a photographic genre from the early decades of the twentieth century as a local, unique, and complex case of visual Orientalism. Hagai Ulrich reviews the book and suggests broadening the conversation through the values and characteristics of performance art.

An Illusion about Understanding

In Richard Deacon's comprehensive solo show at the Prague Municipal Gallery, to see the large-scale sculptures viewers must get close, bend down, crane their necks upward, focus on the small details, and then again step back and look at the whole work. These exploratory actions that the viewers perform with their bodies and their movement through space have led Hagai Ulrich to try to understand how Deacon manages to physically express ideas, symbols, and signs that cannot be realized in time and space.

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