Interviews from Yale University Radio WYBCX
Tamy Ben-Tor
Studio Character 2, 2019, photo taken by Miki Carmi.
Born in 1975, Jerusalem, Israel. Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Tamy Ben-Tor is a graduate of The School of Visual Theatre, Jerusalem in 2001, and the M.F.A. program in Visual Art at Columbia University 2006. Using spoken word, various soundtracks, costumes, masks and wigs, Ben-Tor's videos and performances are a hysteric embodiment of her surroundings and an amplified over exaggerated interpretation of “Normal” .
“My consciousness is a sponge absorbing all of contemporary filth.
The artistic process for me, in the form of a performance, is to solidify this sponge into a hard stamp tool and press it back onto the audience's consciousness for the duration of the performance.
At the end, I hope they come out of it stained, impressed, as I am, by the ailments of this time which we live in.”
She has had solo shows at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center; Kunsthalle Winterthur; and Cubitt, London. Ben-Tor has also participated in exhibitions at ZKM, Karlsruhe; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Biennale of Sydney; Manifesta 7; Mori Museum, Tokyo; MoCA, Los Angeles; Reina Sofia, Madrid; as well as the PERFORMA 05 and PERFORMA 07 Biennials, New York.
She has been collaborating with artist Miki Carmi since their joint Artists’ book “Disembodied Archetypes” Regency Arts Press , 2008.
To learn more, check out Minerva projects link for their book project. Also, here is links to the videos discussed in the interview: Suma Kom Laudum, 2020. Bill Gates, 2020 and Revenge of The Bureaucrats, 2020.
Studio Character 3, photo taken by Miki Carmi.
Video still from young emerging artists eating and fucking, 2015