Einat Amir is an artist living and working in Tel Aviv. Her work combines film and video installation with performance, and focuses on examining socio-political issues through the framework of psychoanalytic practice.
Early life and education
Amir was born in 1979 in Jerusalem. In 2001, she was award the Fellowship for outstanding students from the Ministry of Education in Israel. In 2004, she received her B.ed. HaMidrasha School of Art, Beit Berl College in Israel, and was the recipient of the school's Excellency Award. After receiving an Agnes Martin Scholarship, and subsequently the Artis Fellowship and the Toms Visual Art Fellowship, as well as the Study Fellowship America from the Israel Cultural Foundation, she attained her M.F.A. in 2009 from Columbia University, School of the Arts in New York.
Career
Amir lives and works in New York and Tel Aviv. She has exhibited at many museums and art venues internationally. Some of her better known works are Women Dancing, Boi, Disgraceful retreat, Acknowledgement, Ideal Viewer and Enough About You. She held a residency from the Antonio Ratti Foundation in Como Italy in 2008, and she was an Artis Grant Recipient in 2009. In 2011 Amir held a residency at Palais de Tokyo, at La Pavillon in Paris. In 2012, she received grants from the Israel National Lottery, Outset Contemporary Art Fun, Ostrovsky Family Fund, Franklin Furnace and she held a residency at ArtPort, Tel Aviv. She was awarded the Young Artist Award from the Ministry of Culture, Israel in 2012 as well. In 2013, she was a grant recipient for Artis and held a residency at ArtPort the Center for Young Art in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 2014, Einat held a residency at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, IL.
Themes
Amir's video and performance-based work present staged interventions and situations that cross fiction with reality. Amir has appeared in some of her own works, and also makes use of actors and willing audience as participants in structured interactions in controlled environments, to illustrate and challenge societal norms. Her earlier works are about issues of gender and self-representation, and relate to her experience as a gay artist living and working in Israeli society. More recent works focus on the effects on individual people of power relationships structured by societal norms. Her performance installations have received mixed reviews.
Representation
Amir is represented by [Aspect/Ratio Gallery in Chicago, IL and Scaramouche Gallery, New York.
