Raffi Lavie was born in Tel Aviv, in 1937. He passed away in 2007.
Education:
1959-60 Studied at The Art Teachers School, Tel Aviv and was one of the founders and organizers of “10+” group in The Sixties
1971-72 Organized a series of exhibitions at the Artists House; Active In organizing exhibitions of his former students
1978 Dizengoff Prize
1967- 2000 Teacher at the State Art Teachers Training College, Ramat Hasharon
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2009 The Israel Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale
2003 New Paintings, New Video, Givon Art Gallery Tel Aviv (With Moshe Gershuni “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”)
2003 Retrospective: Works From 1950-2003 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Curator: Sarit Shapira (Book)
2001 New Paintings And “Shulchan Aroch”, Givon Art Gallery Tel Aviv
2000 New Paintings And Mini Retrospective, Givon Art Gallery Tel Aviv
1993 The Early Paintings 1957-1961 The Tel Aviv Museum Of Art, Curator: David Ginton (Catalogue)
1991 “Heads And Jars” Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv And Gallery Asperger, Germany (Catalogue)
1988 The Museum Of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan (Catalogue)
1987 Givon Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
1980 Tel Aviv Museum, Curator: Sara Breitberg (Catalogue)
Sara Gilat Gallery, Jerusalem, Noemi Givon Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
1974-83 Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv
1973 Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Curator: Yona Fisher (Catalogue)
1961 Katz Gallery
1960 Rina Gallery, Jerusalem
Selected Group Exhibitions:
1987-04 Various Shows, Givon Art Gallery Tel Aviv
1992 “Positions Israel”, Collection Dr.R. Hocherl/W. Asperger, Kunstlerhaus Betanian Berlin, Germany (Catalogue)
1989 “Beyond Drawing”, Givon Art Gallery Tel Aviv
1988 “Kunst Aus Israel”, From The Collection Charles Mayorkas, Kunsthaus Zug (Catalogue)
1980-86 Various Shows, Noemi Givon Contemporary Art
1986 “The Want Of The Matter- A Quality In Israeli Art”, The Tel Aviv Museum (Catalogue)
1985 “Milestones In Israeli Art” Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1984 “Two Years- Qualities Accumulated”, Tel Aviv Museum, Helena Rubinstein Pavillion (Catalogue)
1974-1983 Various Shows, Gordon Gallery Tel Aviv
1969 Biennale Of Young Artists, Paris
1965-70 Participated In Exhibitions Of “10+” Group, Gordon Gallery Tel Aviv; The Tel Aviv Museum Autumn Salons, Helena Rubinstein Pavillion
1965 “Trends In Israeli Art”, Inaugural Exhibition Of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1964 “Tazpit”, Tel Aviv Museum, Helena Rubinstein Pavillion
“Art Israel”, The Museum Of Modern Art New York
1963 “New Horizons”, Museum Ein-Harod
“Form Today”, Bezalel Museum, Jerusalem
Raffi Lavie was born in 1937 in Israel. In 1966, he became a founder of the group "Ten Plus". In the early 1960s, Mr. Lavie began to paint in spontaneous scrawls which soon began to echo graffiti and comic strip art. He wrote on his paintings as if they were walls covered with scribbles. Nurtured by Aviva Uri and Arie Aroch, his work was angry, nervous, aggressive and abrasive. He was invited to exhibit with "New Horizons", but his work had already, at the beginning of the 1960s, challenged the delicate lyricism of the group.
Towards the end of the 1960s, Mr. Lavie began to glue photographs, reproductions and posters on his works, combining varied aesthetic elements of kitsch, applied graphics, children's drawing and political rhetoric transforming the banal. He transformed the banal into art and breathed art into the banal. Like Tumarkin and Lifshitz he scorned bourgeois prototypes of beauty and sought to restore the image to art after its banishment by "New Horizons."
