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Galit eilat plataforma
Galit Eilat is an independent curator and writer living in the Netherlands.
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Galit Eilat is the founding director of The Israeli Center for Digital Art in Holon (2001 - 2010). During the time that she served as a director for DAL, she curated numerous exhibitions presenting both Israeli and international artists. Among the projects and platforms she developed with the DAL team was the trilogy 'Hilchot Shchenim' (2003-2005), an attempt to establish a regional cultural network as a platform for artists and art centres in the Near East, the Mediterranean Basin, as well as in wider circles such as the former Eastern European bloc and the Balkans. The objective was to overcome the limitations on communication that are dictated by political and national conditions. In the same line of projects that aimed to overcome national borders, Eilat established the ‘Mobile Archive’. Started in Hamburg in 2007, the Mobile Archive began its journey when each of its stations contributed artworks to the original collection (1500 titles). As of 2015, the archive visited more than seventeen art centres and art academies.
Together with Michel Kessus Gdaliyovich she founded Ma’arav (“Ambush”), an online arts and culture magazine, for which she was Chief Editor from 2004 – 2010. Ma’arav was a unique alternative platform on the Israeli media map. In each issue the magazine tackled a specific topic from various angles, including the presentation of relevant art works, talks with creators, debates and educational topics. It focused on issues such as fundamentalism, messianic movements, violence, the place of Judaism in Israeli culture, intellectual property and East-West relationship’s impact on the Middle East. With Eyal Danon, Reem Fadda and Phil Misselwitz she developed the 'Liminal Spaces' traveling seminars (2006-2008). The initial focus of the project was Road 60, which connects Jerusalem and Ramallah, and how it might be possible through art and culture to overcome political, social and physical barriers created by the Israeli occupation of Palestine. ‘Liminal Spaces’ was not an actual exhibition, but rather a joint research project, a collective micro-residency, production platform and a series of interventionist, site-specific conferences rolled into one. It has since permeated most of the politically engaged art in Israel and Palestine and opened the way for experimental curatorial initiatives well beyond. The book ‘Liminal Spaces’ was published in 2009.
In 2010 Eilat left her base in Israel and continued her committed work at the Van Abbemuseum, where from 2010 – 2013 she was Research Curator. Alongside the projects that she developed with her colleagues from the Van AbbeMuseum, she curated the exhibition ‘Politics of Collection, Collection of Politics’ as part of the Play Vanabbe series of exhibitions. In 2011 she collaborated with Sebastian Cichocki to create the book "A Cookbook for Political Imagination", which accompanied the exhibition of Yael Bartana ‘And Europe will be stunned’ at Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In late 2011 she co-curated with Alenka Gregoric the project ‘It’s Time We Got To Know Each Other’, 52nd October Salon, at the Museum of Yugoslav History, Belgrade, Serbia. Along with this project she additionally edited a reader, ‘Symptoms of unresolved conflict’.
Eilat is one of the founding members of the Academy of the Arts of the World, founded in 2012, in Cologne.
Recently Eilat co-curated the 31st Sao Paulo Biennial ‘How to (…) things that don’t exist’ together with Charles Esche, Nuria Enguita Mayo, Pablo Lafuente, Oren Sagiv and associate curators Benjamin Seroussi and Luiza Proença. In 2014, she co-curated the travelling exhibition "Rainbow in the Dark" with Sebastian Cichocki in collaboration with SALT, İstanbul and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. This show about religious and secular in art from a post-secular perspective premiered at SALT, İstanbul followed by a more extensive presentation at Malmö's Malmö Konstmuseum. In 2016, she curated the exhibition titled "The Presence of the Real" was supported by the EU funded project “Culture for All - Phase III”, managed by the European Union Office in Kosovo. Along with Charles Esche and Oren Sagiv she was the co-curator of "How to (…) things that don’t exist – an exhibition developed out of the 31st São Paulo Biennial" at the Serralves Foundation in Porto.
Books co-edited by Eilat are "HOW TO (...) THINGS THAT DON'T EXIST", published on the occasion of the 31st Sao Paolo Biennial, "A Cook Book For Political Imagination" and "C.H.O.S.E.N. Reader". Contributions include " I Can’t Work Like This, A Reader on Recent Boycotts and Contemporary Art", "Sao Paulo Case, The Curatorial Conundrum. What to Study? What to Research? What to Practice?", "The Errorist Theatre, What is political theatre today?" in "Not Just a Mirror. Looking for the Political Theater of Today", "Yael Bartana" in "9 Artists", and " A Good Drug Dealer, Galit Eilat in conversation with Artur Żmijewski" in "Forget Fear, 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art".
Galit Eilat is currently developing a large scale international research project titled "Syndrome of the Present" with partners in Amsterdam, İstanbul and Thessaloniki.