DIALOGUE: Max Epstein & Jiří Černický

Date: 18.3. od 19:00 hodin

A dialogue of two great artists - Israeli Max Epstein and Czech Jiří Černický.

Max Epstein is a multidisciplinary artist. At the age of 16, he immigrated to Israel from Russia in 1990 and has lived and worked in Jerusalem ever since.
He graduated from Bezalel Academy (BA) and received a Master of Arts (MFA) from the University of Haifa. Max presented 13 solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions in Israel and around the world. Among them are exhibitions at the Wilfrid Israel Museum, the Bat Yam Museum, the Russian Ethnography Museum (St. Petersburg), the Israel Museum (Tycho House). He builds total installations that are site-specific and include various visual art media — such as, photography, drawing, sculpture, animation, and sound. Max has curated 12 exhibitions and initiated artistic projects in the Jerusalem area and abroad. Among them, there was an artistic-community project dealing with education and animation using an innovative method. Specifically, the project is an animation studio for children and youth called "Wild Kids". This animation studio has been around for 9 years and has become a second home for more than 100 Jerusalem children. Max has served as an active teacher in this studio from its inception.
Epstein received the Mordechai Ish-Shalom Prize for a special contribution to art, and the Minister of Aliyah and Integration’s Yuri Stern Prize To Oleh Artists for his sculpture work.

Jiří Černický studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague at the studio of Adéla Matasová and at the Academy of Fine Arts at the studios of Miloš Šejn and Jiří David. He works in a broad range of media and artistic approaches from painting, installation and object to performance and new media. He creates conceptual projects addressing social issues based on natural human emotions. He uses sarcastic humor to point out current social issues and give a brand-new perspective on the established perception of the world to the viewers. He comments on and subverts the role of transnational corporations and critically addresses the consumerism dominating our reality. A large part of his work lies in utopian architectural and other projects which – while remaining mere designs – aptly name the social and environmental issues of today. Besides Jindřich Chalupecký Award, he also received the Soros Award and the 48th October Salon Award. He held a retrospective solo exhibition at Rudolfinum Gallery and presented his work at Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, Artsdepot Gallery in London and Steinek Gallery in Vienna. He is head of the Painting Studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.