Zvi Goldstein

Zvi Goldstein is an Israeli artist who played an active role in the conceptual art scene in Europe.

Biography of Zvi Goldstein

Zvi Goldstein was born in Cluj, Romania, in 1947. He spent his early childhood in his hometown and frequently went hiking with his father in the Carpathian Mountains.

He attended elementary school, where he endured numerous anti-Semitic attacks both during and after school hours. In 1958, he and his parents immigrated to Kiryat Gat, Israel. In 1962, he left school after the tenth grade and worked at Polgat Textiles in Kiryat Gat between 1962 and 1963.

In 1963, Goldstein applied to the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem but was initially rejected. He tried again in 1964 and was accepted, becoming the youngest student in his class in the Graphic Department.

In November 1964, Zvi Goldstein had to pause his studies at the Academy to fulfill his mandatory military service in the Israeli army, serving for two years and four months. During his service, he was called up for the Six-Day War and subsequently served as a reservist at various locations in Israel for the next six months.

In 1968, he returned to the Academy, but the following year, he discontinued his studies to embark on a journey to Europe. Financed by funds from the Academy as the recipient of the Hermann Struck Prize, he departed with minimal resources—just one bag and a one-way ticket. He hitchhiked through several European countries and also made a brief trip to New York City in the United States to visit Sol LeWitt, whom he had known from his time in Milan.

He enrolled in the Painting and Sculpture Department at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, receiving a Diploma in Fine Art and Sculpture in 1972. Later that year, he held his first solo exhibition in Milan at the Galleria la Bertesca.

The artist returned to Jerusalem to establish a peripheral position from which he could develop a new artistic perspective. He began extensive research into contexts marginalized in the West, laying the groundwork for his future travels. Concurrently, he took on a role as a lecturer in the Fine Arts Department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

In 1982, he was called back to the army during the first Lebanon War and participated in patrol operations. During the 1990s, he undertook a series of meticulously planned journeys to specific locations in Greece, Turkey, Asia, and predominantly across Africa.

During his career, Goldstein received numerous awards, grants, and accolades, including"

• The Sandberg Prize of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1984);
• Aaron Levi Prize of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1987);
• Prize of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Israel (1988);
• D.A.A.D Berliner Künstlerprogramm (artist in residence), Berlin, Germany (1990);
• The LennonOno grant for peace, New York (2002);
• The EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, Israel (2013).

Currently, the artist lives and works in Jerusalem, Israel.

Zvi Goldstein's Art Style

For the past four decades, Zvi Goldstein has been dedicated to redirecting contemporary art towards regions historically considered peripheral to the Western world. In the early 1970s, Goldstein, then a young student in Milan, actively contributed to the conceptual art scene in Europe. By 1978, growing discontent with late Modernism and prevailing Post-Modernist trends led Goldstein to leave Italy for Jerusalem. There, he established Jerusalem as his artistic and intellectual home—a unique intermediate zone bridging Europe with the peripheries of the Middle East and Africa.

Goldstein's works defy classification—they are neither readymades nor traditional sculptures. Despite their industrial and technological allure, each piece is uniquely singular, rejecting the Duchampian approach of transforming everyday objects into art through redefinition, which would necessitate an external, non-artistic context. Instead, Goldstein's works possess the mystique of objects emerging spontaneously into the world, their production labor obscured. As a result, they appear as inexplicable, unavoidable phenomena—fulfilling a necessity with a sense of urgency.