Yuval Avital (Jerusalem, 1977) is a multimedia artist and composer, who develops his works in a variety of spaces, including public places, archaeological sites, theaters and museums.
His works have been presented in museums, foundations and events such as the MANIFESTA Art Biennale, MACRO Rome, OSTRALE Biennale d'Arte in Dresden, The Chocolate Factory Foundation in Switzerland, the Church of Saint Antoine Istanbul, the Marino Marini Museum in Florence. , National Museum of Science and Technology "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan. His operas, symphonic and chamber works have been presented in theaters and festivals such as Brighton Festival, Warsaw Autumn Festival, MiTo SettembreMusica Milano, Tel Aviv Museum, Teatro Comunale "L.Pavarotti" in Modena, Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen, National Conservatory of China, Center Pompidou, Quinta da Regaleira Palace Portugal.
As part of the macro-work created by the Israeli author Yuval Avital with the title Bestiary of the Earth, project of the year of Reggio Parma Festival 2022, Persona is the third exhibition and represents the investigation on maturity, after the two previous childhood, with Anatomie exquisite (Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia), and on adolescence, with Animal Lexicon. Prologue (APE Museum of Parma).
In this stage the famous sound masks by Yuval Avital are on display. Person in the past meant mask as the Italian term comes from the Latin verb personare, formed by per = through + sonare = resonate, with reference to the actors of classical theater who “spoke through” the wooden mask they wore on stage.
Made by the artist in collaboration with Tuscan artisan excellences (in 2019 on the occasion of the monographic exhibition Nephilìm, at the Marino Marini Museum in Florence), Avital's sound masks contain a strong underlying symbolic meaning from which mystery, artifice and rite leak out.
Together with the sound masks there is the video installation Firedance, a reflection born in front of the traditional fires of San Giuseppe di Matera, in which the shadow of a child feeding the fire should be understood as a spiritual and purifying message. Finally, River Icons an iconographic work in which the river alludes to the flow of migrants who abandon their lands and in which the participants, made up of refugees and asylum seekers, become co-creators of the work, engaging a process of re-humanization of the de-humanized individual.
