עברית | العربية

Things I Did Overseas is a new lecture series at the Center for Contemporary Art where artists talk about a project they created abroad: an art work that was significant in their creative development, but that the audience in Israel is almost unfamiliar with. This is an opportunity to get acquainted with the thought and work processes on complex projects that were realized overseas, through the challenges, doubts, and breakthroughs in their making.

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Asaf Elkalai will talk about his exhibition Veil, which was conceived and realized during a three-month residency at Westwerk Hamburg.

Asaf will recount how he created a new body of work in an accelerated process in an unfamiliar city whose language he does not speak; how, out of his ongoing interest in public sculpture, he set out to study the terrain in Hamburg and connected (also literally) to four outdoor sculptures from 1903 by the German sculptor Johannes Schilling; how he acted with lightning speed compared to his processes in Israel, without permits, in a guerrilla operation that included castings, wrapping, climbing, and photography in public space; and how, through his positioning as a stranger and while applying his gaze on a foreign landscape, the logic of his artistic language was distilled.

Asaf Elkalai (b. 1986, Kerem Ben Zimra) is an artist, lecturer, and educator based in Tel Aviv. His practice combines installation, sculpture, photography, print, and video, exploring relationships between gaze, body, and space, and the different ways of seeing they produce. He holds a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Art from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, as well as a degree in Education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Elkalai has participated in leading residency programs and has exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. He has received major awards, including the Miron Sima Award, the Elovic Prize, and the Young Artist Award from the Ministry of Culture.

The event will be held in Hebrew

Duration: approx. 60 minutes

Admission: 20 NIS

For tickets, click here

Image: Asaf Elkalai, from the working process on Veil. 2025