Yehudit Sasportas

About Yehudit Sasportas
Yehudit Sasportas (born 1969, Ashdod, Israel) is among the most prominent and influential artists in contemporary Israeli art, and one of the creators whose artistic language has gained broad international recognition. Her practice is multidisciplinary, integrating sculpture, drawing, installations, video, and sound. Sasportas creates experiential and complex environments that respond directly to the architecture in which they are situated. At the core of her artistic practice lies an ongoing contemplation of the unseen—unconscious materials, quiet processes, and concealed energies—that connect the tangible with the metaphysical, enabling the viewer to delve into hidden layers of perception and awareness and to experience an intense and total sensory encounter.

Education and Academic Path
Sasportas is a graduate of the Department of Art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, where she completed her BFA studies in 1993, including a semester at Cooper Union in New York, and her MFA studies in 1999. Professor Sasportas is a senior lecturer in the Department of Art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, teaching in both the MFA and BFA programs. She hasbeen engaged in teaching at Bezalel and additional institutions since 1994.

Professional Career
The artistic development of Sasportas is reflected in a rich sequence of solo exhibitions in leading museums and exhibition spaces in Israel and internationally. Among her exhibitions are: The Time Dwellers (Arter, Istanbul, 2022); The Archeology of the Unseen (Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven, Germany, 2021); RIFTS OF ABSENCE (Villa Schöningen, Potsdam, 2017); Vertical Swamps HAMAKOM (Bo Bjerggaard Gallery, Copenhagen, 2016); Vertical Swamp Raw Material (Eigen + Art Gallery, Berlin, 2015); Seven Winters The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2013); The Clearing of the Unseen (DA2 Domus Atrium, Spain, 2009); The Laboratory (Braunschweig, Germany, 2008); The Guardians of the Threshold (The Israeli Pavilion, the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007); The Cave Light (Leonhardi Museum, Dresden, 2005); By the River, Matrix 200 (Berkeley Art Museum, San Francisco, 2002); The Carpenter and the Seamstress (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2000).
Alongside her solo exhibitions, Sasportas regularly participates in major group exhibitions that position her work within broader discussions of culture, memory, and space. Amng her recent exhibitions are Pendulum Swing: Israeli Art (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2025); I Don’t Want to Forget (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2024); Backstage (Museum Tal, Engelberg, 2024); Home is Where You Are Happy (Haus Mödrath, Kerpen, 2023); By the Sea (Wilhelmshaven, 2021); Sculpture & Nature (Schloss Schwante, Oberkrämer, Germany, 2020); Illuminations (Russia, 2019); Shades of Black and White (Bo Bjerggaard Gallery, Copenhagen, 2014). Earlier exhibitions—including the International Istanbul Biennial (1999) and presentations in leading museums throughout Europe and the Unitd States—demonstrate the depth of sustained international interest in her artistic language.

Awards and Grants
Over the years, Sasportas has received wide recognition through awards, fellowships, and residencies. Among her most recent awards are the Zila Yaron Prize (2024) and the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art (2024). She has received grants and fellowships from the Independent Creators Fund, the Ministry of Culture and Sport (2022), a grant for the production of a new artwork from Mifal HaPais, and support for the encouragement of artistic creation in the visual arts from the Ministry o Culture and Sport.
Notable residencies include Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (2004) and the Binz Foundation in Switzerland (2003). Early awards such as the Gottesdiener Prize (1999), the Ingeborg Bachmann Fellowship established by Anselm Kiefer through the Wolf Foundation (1996), and many others mark the consistent and significant path through which she has developed her artistic language.
Over more than three decades of artistic practice, Yehudit Sasportas has been engaged in a compelling dialogue between subconscious, unspoken, and unseen life materials, in a manner through which these layers of information activate the visible, cognitive realm at the surface. Her works—installations, drawings, and films—constitute an ongoing investigation into the hidden forces that shape human perception. She continues to work and exhibit in Israel and internationally, maintaining her position as a central and influential figure in contemporary art discourse.