Sharon Ya’ari (born in Israel, 1966), looks closely at the remains of lost histories and considers whether the photograph has the capacity to reconstruct and contend with them.
For Ya’ari, photography as a medium is uniquely able to cope with the complex interrelations of imagination, historical knowledge, and the sociopolitical present. The “local” in his work is always a hybrid creature — a mosaic equally composed of facts on the ground, and of unfulfilled, conflicting desires, failures, and mistakes. A place caught in a perpetual state of development as well as decay and destruction. Ya’ari’s photography identifies the traces of the constant tension that exists between simple actions in everyday life and the ideologies that guide them.
His works have been shown in numerous international solo and group exhibitions, including at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Museum Haus Esters, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Kunstverein Heilbronn, Camera Austria, Graz, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Art Institute of Chicago, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, ICP NewYork, Kunst Haus Wein, Drexler University Art Gallery, Philadelphia
Ya’ari has received significant awards including The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture — Photography (2018), The Constantiner Photography Award, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2010), The Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2005), and The Janet & George M. Jaffin Award, America–Israel Cultural Foundation (2004). Ya’ari’s works are included in major collections: The Art Institute of Chicago, The Israel Museum Jerusalem, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, The Jewish Museum, New York and The Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Ya’ari is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Master of Fine Arts program, as well as in the Photography Department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem.