Joshua Simon

This article is about the Israeli art curator. For the Singaporean radio presenter, see Joshua Simon (radio presenter).

Joshua Simon (born 1979, Tel Aviv, Israel), is a curator, writer, publisher, cultural critic, poet, filmmaker and public intellectual. He currently lives in Philadelphia, PA.

Joshua Simon, 2011

Simon curated exhibitions in museums and art spaces in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, NYC, Melbourne, London, Zürich, Vienna, Berlin, and Amsterdam, among other places. Simon is former director and chief curator at MoBY-Museums of Bat Yam, Israel (2012- 2017), which made him the youngest museum director in the history of the country. Co-founding editor of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa based Maayan publishing together with Roy Chicky Arad. Author of Neomaterialism (Sternberg Press, 2013), and editor of United States of Palestine-Israel (Sternberg Press, 2011), Ruti Sela: For The Record (Archive Books, 2015), Communists Anonymous (with Ingo Niermann, Sternberg Press, 2017), and Being Together Precedes Being: A Textbook for The Kids Want Communism (Archive Books, forthcoming 2018). His writing has been taught among other places at the Royal College of Art London, UK, Northwestern University Chicago, US, and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts Norway.

Art

Installation view of The Unreadymade, curated by Joshua Simon with works by Harald Thys and Jos de Gruyter, Michael E. Smith, Asaf Koriat, Francesco Finizio, Joe Scanlan and Elisheva Levy, at FormContent, London, Dec. 2010

Simon has worked with Anri Sala [1] as curator and art critic. In addition he is co-editor of several publications: Maayan dedicated to poetry and ideas (alongside Roy Arad), Maarvon (Western) dedicated to film, and The New & The Bad, a periodical dedicated to art, based in the Middle East.

His exhibitions include Sharon (2004, Tel Aviv), Blanks (2005, Tel Aviv), Doron (2007, Tel Aviv), Come to Israel it's Hot and Wet and we have the Humus (2008, Storefront, NYC), Internazional (2008, Left Bank Israel communist party culture club, Tel Aviv), Unreadymade (2011, formContent, London), ReCoCo (2011-12 Zurich-Vienna-Holon).

Joshua Simon is one of the founders of the Free Academy group in Tel Aviv and curator of the first Herzliya Biennial.

Simon has curated many exhibitions, most of them political or social. He curated Anihu in Herzliya Museum of Art (2005) and Sharon (2004) that put parallel lines between Ariel Sharon and the Sharon region in Israel. In May 2006, Simon curated the exhibition Doron ("gift" in Hebrew), which refers to Doron Sabag (דורון סבג), an Israeli art patron and a CEO of O.R.S. human resources, and explored the connection between art and labour rights in Israel. In September 2007 Simon curated the first Israeli biennial, the Herzliya Biennial presenting more than 70 artists.

Cinema and poetry

Simon's film The Radicals (2001) was screened in numerous festivals worldwide. It tells the story of a group of young people spraying "jerUSAlem" on the western wall. In 2011 Simon began working on a film project called PushUp.

Simon is the author of the poetry book National Citizens. In the first issue of Ma'ayan he published a list called "The Prince", exploring his life and views on the world from A to Z.

Journalism

In the business magazine Firma (a Globes supplement), Simon has published articles since 2002 on various issues, including interviews with Menahem Golan, the former education minister Limor Livnat, the former defence minister Amir Peretz, and the Israeli Prime ministers Ehud Ulmert and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bibliography

Simon, Joshua (2013). Neomaterialism. Anna Altman (ed.). Berlin: Sternberg Press. ISBN 978-3-943365-08-5.

Key concepts

Simon's work is often identified with several concepts. Some of these are:

• The Curatorial [2]
• Unreadymade [3]
• The Overqualified [4]
• Dividual [5]

External links

• Joshua Simon at IMDb
• Maayan Magazine Website
• the Doron exhibition (website)
• The Radicals (film by Joshua Simon)