Galit Eilat selected as 2017–18 Keith Haring Fellow in Art and Activism

The Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard) and the Human Rights Project at Bard College announced today that the curator and writer Galit Eilat has been selected as the fourth recipient of the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism. Made possible through a grant from the Keith Haring Foundation, the Fellowship is an annual award for a scholar, activist, or artist to teach and conduct research in art and activism at Bard College.

Galit Eilat founded, and directed from 2001 to 2010, the Israeli Center for Digital Arts in Holon, which under her leadership became one of the pre-eminent sites for genuine collaborations between Israeli and Palestinian artists, as well as with art organizations from the Near East, former Eastern European bloc, and the Balkans. In 2004, she co founded Maarav, an online arts and culture magazine, which she went on to edit until 2010. She was part of the team that developed a series of traveling seminars entitled “Liminal Spaces” (2006–09), which aspired primarily to establish an absent but essential platform for joint work, action, and dialogue between the Israeli and Palestinian art communities.

Between 2010 and 2013, she collaborated with the Van Abbemuseum on several projects, including Play VanAbbe, Picasso in Palestine, and the collection presentation. She served as artistic director of the Akademie der Künste der Welt, in Cologne, from 2012–13. She has curated and co curated many exhibitions, including the Polish Pavilion in Venice Biennale (2011), 32nd October Salon Belgrade (2011), and she was a member of the 31st Sao Paulo Bienal curatorial team between 2013–15, and involved in projects from Kosovo, Ljubljana, Turkey, Poland, and elsewhere. She has taught and lectured in a range of universities, museums, and galleries, and has written extensively about art and politics.

In Eilat’s words, her work “creates conditions to untangle knowledge through collective encounters and experiences, ” part of a search for ways to “challenge the status quo in order to open a space to perceive the new, the unfamiliar, and possibilities for courageous actions in time.”

While at Bard, Eilat will pursue the current phase of her research titled “Syndrome of the Present,” investigating sovereignty, present conflicts, and eschatological movements through the 17th century myth of Westphalia. Her seminars in Human Rights and Curatorial Studies will also pursue this line of inquiry.

“Galit brings to Bard a wealth of knowledge about the different ways artistic practices get involved in, and can help us understand, struggles for justice today,” said Thomas Keenan, director of Bard’s Human Rights Project. “She embodies Keith Haring’s daring, and sometimes mischievous, work at the intersection of art and activism.”

Eilat will take up her one-year appointment in September 2017, and spend the fall semester teaching at the College.  She succeeds architects and artists Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, of Decolonizing Architecture in Beit Sahour, Palestine, who held the Fellowship for 2016–17. Prior recipients include Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, and Delhi-based artist Shuddhabrata Sengupta.

“The Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism has proven one of the most dynamic cross-disciplinary programs at Bard that embodies our philosophy that what is taught, discussed, and learned at college can and should make positive change in the world. Galit’s work and methodologies are inspirational in this regard,” said Tom Eccles, Executive Director of CCS Bard.