Shahar Marcus (b. 1971) is an Israeli based artist who primary works in the medium of performance and video art. His initial works dealt with the exploration of his own body and its limitations- incorporating various perishable materials, such as dough, juice and ice. His body served as an instrument, a platform on which various ‘experiments’ took place: lying on the operating table, set on fire, dressed in a ‘bread suit’ and more.

Food is also a major theme in Marcus’s works. For instance, his recurrent use of bread as a symbol of essentiality and survival is juxtaposed with military symbols. By working with food, a perishable, momentary substance and by turning it into a piece of clothing or a set, Marcus also flirts with art history; transforming arbitrary objects and materials into something immortal and everlasting.

His early video-performances feature himself along with other artists, with whom he had collaborated in the past. However, in his recent works, Marcus appears by himself, while embodying different roles and characters. ‘The man with the suit’ is a personage that was born from an intuitive desire to create a ‘clean-cut’ version of an artist, juxtaposed to the common visual stereotype of the artist as a laborer. Drawing influence from Magritte’s familiar figure- the headless suit, a symbol of Petite bourgeoisie, Marcus embodies this man with a suit as an artist who is in charge, a director.

His most recent works deal with local political issues, by approaching iconic Israeli landmarks with a critical and humorous point of view. Thus, Marcus reflects on his own heritage, environment and the creation of local historical narratives. His works are influenced by the visual language of cinematography along with familiar themes and tributes to art – history and artists, such as Ives Klein, Paul McCarthy, Peter Greenway and Jackson Pollack.

Shahar Marcus is an active artist for over a decade and has exhibited at various art- institutions, both in Israel and around the world, including: The Tate Modern ,The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Petach Tikva Museum of Art , Charlottenburg, Copenhagen- Kunsthalle , Moscow Biennale, Poznan Biannale, Moscow Museum of Modern Art The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and at other art- venues in Polland, Italy, Germany, Georgia, Japan, the USA and Turkey. Many of his works are a part of various important collections, such as The Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Petach Tikva Museum of Art as well as art- intuitions in Poland and Italy.

Yunnia Yang is a curator, art historian and art critic based in Taipei, Taiwan. In 1997 she received a MA in Art History from the St. Petersburg State University in Russia, and in 2009 she completed her PhD in Arts from National Taiwan Normal University with a thesis on the paranoic criticism of Salvador Dalì, with which she was awarded a S-An Aesthetics Award in 2010. Since 2011, she runs the long-term curatorial research on ‘ The Postmodern Condition in the contemporary art of Russia and Eastern Europe’. Among her most representative curatorial projects are: “ The Apocalyptic Sensibility: The New Media Art from Taiwan” (WRO Media Art Biennale 2013, Taipei Fine Art Museum in 2015), “Imagining Crisis” (MOCA Taipei in 2014, the contemporary art centers in Poland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Colombia and 34th Asolo Art Film Festival during 2014-2015) and “ TAIWAN VIDEA: the Taiwanese Avant-garde Video Exhibition” ( 2015 Asolo Art Film Festival). In 2016, she was invited by Asolo Art Film Festival Committee to present “Eco as a verb” and another video project, “TAIWAN VIDEA2.0:Cultural Encounter”. In May 2017, Yunnia was incited to present these two projects in the official program of the St. Petersburg Museum Night 2017. In 2017, her curatorial project “TAIWAN VIDEA 2017 Selection” has been touring internationally in Macedonia ( The Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje), Croatia (Galerija AŽ in Zagreb), Slovenia ( SCCA-Ljubljana), Germany (Rosalux in Berlin), and Italy (36th Asolo Art Film Festival). In 2017, Yunnia was also guest curator at the Yo-Chang Art Museum in National Taiwan University of Arts. Her latest curatorial project is The Eastern Europe/Russia Video Research “The In-Between State of Mind” commissed by 36th Asolo Art Film Festival in 2018 for the special program of BRICS ART. Dr. Yunnia Yang is currently Adjunct Associate Professor of the Department of Sculpture at the National Taiwan University of Arts.