Premio Combat Prize

Artwork description:
TURGOR, 2014
HD-Video Performance, 3’09”
(Filmed in Münster, 2014)
“Turgor” is a video documentation of the deceptively simple action of the artist submerging his head into a cube-shaped water tank on the promenade in front of the Zwinger building, in ‘the city of water’, Münster.
Filmed as a single continuous shot, the video juxtaposes various almost contrary elements: the backdrop of a building once used as a torture cell and execution site during the Nazi years; a song sung by his grandmother and the melodic chirping of birds; and the artist’s inverted entrance into the water and the indefinite pause in his breathing, while people ride by behind him on their bicycles, seemingly unaware or indifferent to the act of exertion taking place within eyeshot. By referencing the history of water torture, this work reads both like a physical re-enactment of this type of physical and psychological, and as a metaphor for human struggle, fear and memory. The concept of turgor pressure – taken from biological terminology where it signifies the distension of plant tissue due to adequate fluid content – here alludes to the condition of being full of life and is a manifestation of the quality of absence characteristic of Holocaust representations, as well as the filling of space.
Screenings:
2018 ’Changing Rooms’ | PHOTO IS:RAEL - the International Photography Festival #6, Tel Aviv, Israel. Curator: Sigalit Landau
2018 GROUND LEVEL, *Solo Exhibition, LOKO Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
*partnership program: The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions
2017 AVAF - Addis Video Art Festival, 2nd Edition International Video Art Festival, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
2016 VORORT 2 draußen, International Artist Symposium, Starzach-Börstingen, Germany
2016 FAÇADE VIDEO FESTIVAL, Center for Contemporary Art – Plovdiv, The Ancient Bath, Bulgaria. (*Top 10 selected video works)
2015 Better Place, cellule 516, Marseille, France. Sigalit Landau with the participation of Yotam From and Eyal Segal. Curator: Audrey Koulinsky
2015 Screening Project: Dongshi Sangyoung, Open Box at Jujube Artists Studio in Seoul, South Korea. Curator: Jungeun Kim
2015 Release: Return, Solo Exhibition, FUGA budapest center of architecture, Budapest, Curator: Lili Boros
2015 Waterscapes: The Politics of Water, Pohang Museum of Steel Art, Pohang, South Korea. Curator: Hyewon Lee
2014 Waterscapes: The Politics of Water, The Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea. Curator: Hyewon Lee
SHORT BIO:
Eyal Segal (b.1982) is an Israeli born artist with German and Indian (Cochin) roots. His work interprets remembrance, tradition of the past and the possibility of self-understanding. The physical space is a central motif in his work and serves as a starting point for the self-interpretation. Past and present are connected in a concrete ‘locus’; this idea is continually interwoven in a powerful aesthetic viewpoint, matched with the perception of space through multi-channel videos. Presenting multiple video works in combination, he incorporates positional relationships in the exhibition space and creates the possibility of new interpretations. The key word for Segal’ s work is ‘place’ . Here, memory, history, human activities and the traces of particular places are epically drawn on the screen. Furthermore, his video projects are composed and positioned such that they mutually influence each other, creating a sublimated site-specific installation in which the exhibition space itself forms an element of the work. His solid video images are as if three-dimensional objects, the body of the artist himself fill the space by placing heavy bronze sculptures - video as a sculpture of time and place.
During his studies at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Tel Aviv (2006-2010), he began working as assistant and studio director for the world-recognized artist Sigalit Landau, for a period of five years. In 2013, Segal exhibited his first Solo exhibition in the Negev museum of art (Beer Sheva, Israel), and since then, he participated in numerous exhibitions in museums, art spaces and international art festivals all over the world; Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul, Pohang Museum of Steel Art in Pohang, South Korea. Cellule516, Marseilles, France. Ashdod Museum of art, Petah Tikva Museum of art, Arad Contemporary Art Center, Israel. Videoholica video festival, Varna, Facade video festival, Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Project space of Group Global 3000, Berlin, and many more. His second solo exhibition ‘Release: Return’ held in FUGA center, Budapest, 2015, and in 2018- ’GROUND LEVEL’- in LOKO gallery in Tokyo. This solo exhibition also took a part in the 10th Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2018. Tokyo, Japan.