Yuval Avital (; born 1977) is a multimedia artist, composer, and guitarist based in Milan, Italy.
His installations and performances have been presented in prominent museums, biennials, opera houses and cultural institutions worldwide. Avital's multidisciplinary practice spans sound, visual art, performance, video-art and theater, often in collaboration with scientific institutes such as NASA, ethnographic archives, master craftsmen, traditional performers and entire urban communities. In 2016, his icon-sonic opera "Fuga Perpetua" received the sponsorship of the UNHCR.
Biography Yuval Avital was born in 1977 in Jerusalem, Israel. His works are developed in a variety of spaces, including public venues, industrial archaeological sites, theaters and museums.
Including monographic exhibitions, large-scale sound and video installations, and collective performances and compositions described as 'icon-sonic operas'. Composed for soloists, choirs, orchestras and ensembles, sometimes involving traditional masters of ancient cultures, dancers, performers and non-musicians. In addition to technological projects, with the participation of scientists and usage of artificial intelligence.
Art
Avital's work spans a wide range of mediums, with the artistic intention of merging diverse art forms into unified, immersive experiences. He is known for his large-scale installations, performances, and musical compositions, which often explore themes of identity, memory, nature, and cultural dialogue. His works involve the integration of sound, visual art and performance.
Monographic exhibitions BOSCO DI LECCE (FOREST OF LECCE) – (19/11/2023 – 4/02/2024) – A relational art project that brings the artist and the city into dialogue in a process of collective creation, performances, art rituals, materio compositions and works conceived together with citizens and artisans, ideally transforming the inhabitants of Lecce into trees and the city into a human forest. The restitution of the process was presented as a monographic exhibition in MUST Museum in Lecce. LUCUS – (15/07/2023 – 7/01/2024) – Through ninety works, some of them created for the exhibition, Lucus, “the sacred forest”, unfolds in four moments between the spaces of the Biscozzi | Rimbaud Foundation in Lecce. Archaic forms, dreamlike drawings, technological plastic-sound assemblages, surreal plaster figurines and lightboxes suggest a metaphor of the Mediterranean landscape, lost but persistent in memory. ABOUT BIRDS – (23/03/2023 – 10/06/2023) – The exhibition presented in FMAV, Modena, was created in close correlation with the world premiere of the homonymous icon-sonic string quartet, conceived by Avital, that took place at the Pavarotti-Freni Municipal Theater in Modena. Among the numerous artworks on show, a series of watercolors depicting birds, created by the artist during the first lockdown and a photographic series depicting the performance that took place during the artistic seclusion in an old villa in the Modenese hills, where, under the artist's direction, Meitar Ensemble while learning the score, slowly experienced a metamorphosis into birds. LESSICO ANIMALE. MYSTERION – (25/02/2023 – 23/04/2023) – 2000 square meters exhibition inside the subterranean the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, presenting Lessico Animale, a cross-media art opus investigating the relationship between man and animal through the mediums of performance, video art, photography, sound sculptures and sound. Opening with two days of live performances in the spaces of the Mithreum, Lessico Animale. Mysterion ties in with the symbolism of the Mithra cult. MEMBRANE – (1/10/2022 – 13/11/2022) – The exhibition in the Chiostri di San Pietro in Reggio Emilia is the fourth of the meta-opera Il Bestiario della Terra (Reggio Parma Festival 2022) and represents the cry of the last man on Earth, adult and aware of his separation from the state of Nature. Membrane presents the 3 chapters of the opus Foreign Bodies through photography and 14 parallel projections in close dialogue with a visual apparatus composed of paintings, drawings and sound sculptures that are both an invitation to break the rigid boundaries between man and nature. PERSONA – (10/09/2022 – 30/10/2022) – The exhibition is a journey through the halls and collections of Palazzo Marchi, Parma, in which, in a dialogue with the space, the artist has created site-specific installations including a variety of artworks featuring Avital's Sonic Masks, sound art, video art, photography and performance. LESSICO ANIMALE. PROLOGO – (7/07/2022 – 16/10/2022) – The exhibition is part of “Il Bestiario della Terra” (Reggio Parma Festival 2022) and presents the creative process of Lessico Animale a complex exploration and investigation of the relationship between Man and Animality through video projections, photographic prints, plaster casts and other objects related to the performance which took place over six immersive days with nineteen actors from the Casa degli Artisti at the Teatro Due in Parma in May 2022. ANATOMIE SQUISITE – (8/06/2022 – 27/11/2022) – “Anatomie Squisite" is one of the four exhibition of “Il Bestiario della Terra” (Reggio Parma Festival 2022) created in close dialogue with the Reggio Emilia Civic Museums' collections, especially the Spallanzani Collection. It features Avital's "Cadavres Exquis”, hybrid and fantastical creatures in vivid colors, inspired by Surrealist games. These drawings lead to collaborative artworks with local artists, showcasing Avital's relational approach to art. HUMAN_SIGNS_LOOP/ED – (13-22/11/2021) – HUMAN SIGNS LOOP/ED is the first physical exhibition of HUMAN SIGNS since its creation during the first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020. This global participatory voice and gesture artwork is presented on the occasion of LOOP Festival City Screen 2021 as an immersive polyptych installation with 7 parallel projections and a site-specific installation made of daily objects allowing viewers to merge into their own emotional worlds, surrounded by the choral work of 218 artists from over 50 countries. E T E R E – (8/04/22 – 26/06/2021) – E T E R E is an exhibition project specifically designed for the four floors of BUILDING that gathers more than a hundred works, many of them presented for the first time. It is a dream-like narrative divided into four sections, in which each space becomes a microcosm that encloses and reflects a defined environment, connected to the others by an upward path. ICON-SONIC POSTCARDS N.2 – POSTCARDS FROM ROME – (2018–2019) – The exhibition of Postcards from Rome presents all the material collected by Avital during the year long process in Macro Asilo (MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Rome) through icon-sonic artwork divided into 7 chapters that recall the 7 Lightbox scores inside the exhibition. Each scene has been processed in terms of image and sound and related to the others up to a maximum of 9 scenes simultaneously. GRADES OF FOREIGNNESS V.2 – (3/07/2019 – 1/09/2019) – As main Installation of Ostrale Art Biennale in Dresden 2019 was made of two different but interconnected part: Lands v.2 and Foreign Bodies (n.1 Valle di Blenio, n.2 Saxony) NEPHILIM – (3/10/219 – 31/12/2019) – a solo exhibition of 60 Singing Masks sound sculptures created in dialogue with 24 Tuscan master artisans. Marino Marini Museum, Florence; VARIATIONS ON HARMONIC TREMOR: ICON-SONIC ETNA – (09/11/2017 – 30/11/2017) – exhibition of two installations with a video polyptych, a sound sculpture and hundreds of icon-sonic postcards. Hosted by the National Museum of Science and Technology "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan, this exhibition is a tribute to the multifaceted perceived beauty of the territory around the Etna volcano, and to the people that have learnt how to co-exist with this tumultuous and incredible land. THREE GRADES OF FOREIGNNESS – (22/04/2017 – 30/09/2017) – exhibition of three installations with a video polyptych of 7 parallel video projections, a land installation, a sonic camera obscura and visual artworks. Extended over the 2300 square meters of the Fabbrica del Cioccolato Foundation in Switzerland, the exhibition explores the difficult relationship between man and nature, more specifically how they are alienated from one another, in conflict and then reunited.
Installations and permanent sculptures IL CANTO DELLO ZOOFORO – (10/06/2022 – 9/10/2022) – As the starting point of the macro-opera Il Bestiario della Terra (Reggio Parma Festival 2022) Avital has realised "Il canto dello Zooforo”, an unprecedented icon-sonic installation for the Casa del Suono in Parma. The composition is strongly inspired by the bas-reliefs of Benedetto Antelami's Zooforo carved on the walls of the Baptistery of Parma. LULLABIES FOR THE LAND, Piazza Castello, Torino, Italy, 2022; Teatro Franco Parenti, Milan, Italy, 2022 MEDITERRANEAN ALTAR N.2, Centre Des Arts – Ecole Internationale de Genève, 2019. Installation for sonic grains, loudspeakers, ventilators, straw, and light. THE RATTLES GARDEN – permanent sound sculptures. A 1500-square-meter kinetic sound-art work featuring hundreds of bells and rattles from Mediterranean lands on wheat-like metallic sculptures. Played by the wind and visitors, it creates a contemporary yet ancestral symbol. This participative sound sculpture embodies Mediterranean traditions, rebirth, and collective responsibility, uniting the diverse voices of the sea connecting three continents. Created in collaboration with Cittadellarte Fondazione Pistoletto at Mulinum San Floro, Catanzaro, Italy - 2019. LANDS – ring of loudspeakers and soil. The second installation of Avital's Three Grades of Foreignness. REH'EM – sonic camera obscura. Third installation of Avital's Three Grades of Foreignness, it was realised in an old elevator shaft, filled with sounds of the heartbeats of Avital's newborn and seismic vibrations of the earth. OPEN FENCE – permanent sound sculpture: 12 tons of weight, 64 meters of length, 4 meters of height, over 320 tubular bells. Inauguration: 21 June 2017 at the East End Studios of Milan. FIELDS, Bergamo, Frankfurt, 2016. Multiple loudspeakers, in collaboration with Architettura Sonora and Catellani & Smith. Premiere: I Maestri del Paesaggio, Piazza Vecchia & Giardino Tresoldi, Bergamo, Italy 05-20 September 2015. ALMA MATER – in dialogue with “Il Terzo Paradiso” by Michelangelo Pistoletto: massive sonic work consisting of a forest of 140 loudspeakers, legendary étoiles of Teatro alla Scala and lacemakers.Espoarte Magazine - "Il Respiro della Grande Madre" First edition under the patronage of EXPO 2015 and the city of Milan,INEXHIBIT - ALMA MATER July 8 – August 29, La Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan, Italy. Duration: unlimited. SPACE UNFOLDED, BergamoScienza, Bergamo, 2012. Concert for electric guitar, live electronics, video and sonic translations of the cosmic space, in collaboration with NASA and ESA scientists.
Performance FOREIGN BODIES ACTION: Triennale, Milan, 2024, Gwangju Biennial, KR, 2023 – ETERE, Building Milan, 2021 - Woolbridge Gallery, Biella, Italy, 2020 - Dresden Biennial Ostrale, 2019 - . LESSICO ANIMALE. MYSTERION: three days of live performances in the spaces of the Mithreum, Baths of Caracalla, Rome, Italy, 2023 LESSICO ANIMALE. PROLOGO: performance which took place over six immersive days with nineteen actors from the Casa degli Artisti at the Teatro Due in Parma in May 2022. RIVERS: performance for a vocal crowd of refugees and loudspeakers. Premiere: Opening of Terzo Paradiso Center by Michelangelo Pistoletto, Biella, Italy 26 September 2015; Museo Marino Marini, Florence, Italy 4 May 2019; GAM - Torino and Barriera di Milano, Turin, Italy 29–30 September 2020. Palazzo Marchi, Parma, Italy September 2022. Duration: unlimited.