Esther Shalev-Gerz

Based in Paris, Esther Shalev-Gerz is internationally recognized for her seminal contributions to the field of art in the public realm and her consistent investigation into the construction of memory, history, the natural world, democracy and cultural identities. Her works challenge the notion and practice of portraiture and consider how its qualities may contribute to contemporary discourse about the politics of representation.  

Her monuments, installations, photography, video and public sculpture are developed through active dialogue, consultation and negotiation with people whose participation provides an emphasis to their individual and collective memories, accounts, opinions and experiences which then become both represented and considered.

How landscapes history mutate are vision? How can we place the legacy of the past into the present and create new forms of memorials? How can the contemporaneity of the witness’ words be made audible today? How can the artist inspire a society to address violence without repeating it in the means chosen to represent it? In her installations, sculptures and monuments like The Shadow, 2018, and The Monument against Fascism, 1986. E. Shalev-Gerz, appears as an awakener who invites us to feel and witness the experience of the Other by shifting preconceived notions about how we perceive reality and act out our mythology here and now. 

She has exhibited internationally in, amongst other places, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Vancouver, Finland, Detroit, Geneva, Guangzhou and New York and created permanent projects in public spaces in Hamburg, Galilee, Stockholm, Knislinge, Geneva, Glasgow and Vancouver. Significant retrospective exhibitions were presented at the Serlachius Museum, Mantta, Finland (2017), Wasserman Projects, Detroit (2016), the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lausanne (2012) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (2010). Shalev-Gerz’s work has been represented in over twenty-five monographs. 

Esther Shalev-Gerz, born Gilinsky, was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. From 2003 to 2015 she was a Professor in the MA at Valand Art School, Göteborg University Sweden.

Shalev-Gerz is represented by Benedicte Delay, jsvcPROJECTS/London, Sprovieri Gallery, London, Galleri Susanne Ottesen, Copenhagen and Wassermanprojects, Detroit.