2016 Data (Information)

Zigi Ben-Haim: Catalog of Works and Images

Ben-Haim, Zigi

Zigi Ben-Haim was five years old when his family fled his birthplace of Baghdad, Iraq, and immigrated to Israel via Iran. It was Tel-Aviv where he spent his adolescence and graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in 1970.
Following a solo exhibition as a young artist, the America Israel Cultural Foundation awarded him a scholarship to study abroad. Zigi arrived in California and enrolled in California College of Art in Oakland and San Francisco State University. After graduating and receiving his MFA, Zigi set off for the East Coast and have been living and working in SoHo, New York City since 1975.
In the 70's, various materials such as discarded papers, ropes, concrete, and branches, which Zigi was surrounded with in his SoHo neighborhood, were the tools to express his ideas. This period shaped the foundation of his work and Zigi still continues to use materials found in the streets in his work to this day. However, he added aluminum, canvas and steel mesh to better emphasize his concept of bringing contradictory worlds together.
Zigi Ben-Haim's artworks walk on a very thin line between abstraction and representation and are the footprints of identity as seen through his multi-cultural experience. He received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Pollock-Krasner Foundation among others. His works are included in museum collections such as the Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Israel Museum and Tel-Aviv Museum.

Types of work: painting, sculpture, drawing.