Daniel Tsal Wins 2018 Lauren and Mitchell Presser Photography Award for a Young Israeli Artist

Tel Aviv-based artist Daniel Tsal has been announced as the winner of the fourth Lauren and Mitchell Presser Photography Award for a Young Israeli Artist. He will receive a USD 5,000 cash prize, as well as the opportunity to showcase his works in a solo exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.  

Tsal’s photos and photographic installations often depict abstracted bodies and fields of color, as well as staged domestic scenes exploring sexuality. His works have been shown at major venues such as MACT / CACT Arte Contemporanea Ticino in Switzerland, Werkstattgalerie in Berlin, and Contemporary by Golconda gallery in Tel Aviv. In 2003, he curated the group show, “Objects,” at Tel Aviv’s Hachalalit Gallery. His latest projects aim to explore the gaps in optical perception through photographic manipulation.  

The panel of judges consisted of Doron Rabina, chief curator of Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Luca Lo Pinto, curator at Kunsthalle Wien and founder and editor-in-chief of NERO magazine; along with Brendan Embser, managing editor of Aperture magazine and former director of exhibitions at The Walther Collection.

About Tsal’s work, the judges commented: “Tsal extricates from mundane activities quiet dramas, a call for reprieve and for halting the gaze. He creates a rich psychological range through carefully planned and directed photography. His photography excels in distilling humanity from the prosaic, from the marginal, from that which does not seek to be seen, remembered and become an image.”

Previous winners of the award include Rami Maymon, who was featured in the 12th Biennale of Contemporary Art in Naples; Azerbaijan-born photographer Mark Yashaev, who is now represented in the permanent collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and most recently, Ronit Porat. Porat’s works are currently on display at the Museum in a solo exhibition, “The Sentence,” until October 1, 2018. 

Phoebe Tam is an editorial intern of ArtAsiaPacific.

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