Pavel Wolberg

Pavel Wolberg, (born 1966) is an Art photographer and a photojournalist, born in Leningrad Soviet-Union, who lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

At the age of 7, in 1973, Pavel Wolberg moved to Israel from Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) with his mother and grandmother, and grew up in the southern town of Beersheba in the Negev desert. In 1994, Wolberg graguated photography studies in Camera Obscura School of Art in Tel-Aviv. His first solo exhibition has been shown in Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, 1995. Since then, his works has been exhibited in Museums and galleries worldwide, including solo shows in Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Jewish Museum, Berlin, The Jewish Museum (Manhattan) , and George Eastman House, New York City. Wolberg is long time represented by Dvir Art Gallery, and by Andrea Meislin gallery, New York. He participated in the 2007 Venice Biennale exhibition "Think With The Senses, Feel With the Mind", curated by Robert Storr (art academic). Wolberg has been awarded by Leon Constantiner Prize for Israeli Photography, Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2005) and WPO- Sony World Photography Awards (2014). Since 1997, he's being working for newspapers and news agencies such as "Haaretz", "European Pressphoto Agency" (EPA) and The New York Times. His works has been published in Vogue (magazine), Stiletto, Der Spiegel etc. Since 2010, Wolberg is working as well on art projects in Ethiopia - Bodi tribe, Post-Soviet states, and in Japan.

It is often said about Pavel Wolberg's capacity to view his adopted country both intimately and from a distance, and about his ability to capture the private moment in the complex reality of conflicts and political instability of the region. War, terror, occupation, army, intifada, Ultra orthodox Judaism and Hasidic Judaism communities, down town Tel Aviv, religious and secular, are usually captured in large and even panoramic formats.

Lindsay Harris, wrote about Pavel Wolberg,in the catalogue of the 52 Venice Biennale: "In their poignant representation of potent, even unsettling imagery, Wolberg's photographs evoke the gritty drama of traditional photojournalism, such as the black-and-white wartime photographs of Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and other members of Magnum Photos. Yet Wolberg's carefully composed images and refined treatment of light belie his artistic sensibility". "He is the witness I would have liked to have there instead of me," writes Haaretz photographer Alex Levac. Uzi Zur wrote in Haaretz, 2007, "In the future Pavel Wolberg‟s masterpieces will be our chronicles". Micha Bar-Am, an Israel Prize laureate in photography, thinks that Wolberg "succeeds in demonstrating that news photography can become iconic photography".

Wolberg has a son, Amir, and a daughter, Nina.

1995 Herzliya Museum of Art

1997 Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2002 Point-Blank (Israel): Pavel Wolberg: Photographs from the Recent Time, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2006 Ramallah-Tel Aviv, au jour le jour, Hotel de Ville, Paris

2007 Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2008 Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2009 Promised Land, Gemak Arts Centre, The Hague, Netherlands

2012 'Masquerade' Ashdod Art Museum, Monart Centre, Ashdod, Israel

2012 Recent Photographs, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2013 Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York

2014 A World Apart, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York

1994 America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship winners

1995 America Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship winners

1996 Contemporary Photography in Israel, three galleries in Tel-Aviv

1997 Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

1997 Kilkul, Borochov Gallery, Tel Aviv

1998 After Rabin: New Art from Israel, The Jewish Museum, New York

1998 The Lesser Light, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

1999 90 for Tel Aviv – Contemporary Sights, Tel Aviv Museum

2001 Nashakia, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2001 Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2002 Nashakia, Goch Museum, Germany

2002 Chilufim, Germany-Israel, Hertzliya Museum of Contemporary Art and Israel museum, Jerusalem

2002 Corpus Christi, Hotel de Sully, Paris

2003 Chilufim, German-Israeli artists exchange, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld Museum, Museum Ostwall, Germany

2003 Revelation, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

2003 Sharett AICF Awards, Ramat-Gan Museum of Israeli Art

2004 A Point of View, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2004 Terrorvision, Exit Art, New York

2004 Alphabet – Israeli Contemporary Art, Gaevle Kunstcentrum, Kristinehamns Kunstmuseum, Sweden; Trondhjems Kunstforening, Trondheim, Norway

2004 Etude pour un premier amour (no. 3), Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2005 Chaim – Life, Israel through the Photographers’ Lens, The Laurie M. Tisch Gallery, JCC in Manhattan, New York

2005 Die Neuen Hebraer, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin

2006 Mascarada, Domus Atrium 2002, Salamanca, Spain

2006 Leon Constantiner Prize for Israeli Photography Show, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2006 Mixed Emotions, Haifa Museum of Art, curated by Tami Katz-Freiman

2006 ICONICA, curated by Pablo Llorca, Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Spain

2006 Watch Out, Museum of Art Grand-Duc Jean, curated by Martine Schneider

2006 Wanderland, Krefeld Museum, Germany

2007 Dateline Israel - New photography and Video Art, The Jewish Museum, Berlin

2007 Think with the senses - Feel with the Mind, the 52 Venice Biennale, the international show, curated by Robert Storr

2007 Dateline Israel - New photography and Video Art, The Jewish Museum, NY

2008 HeartQuake, On the Seam, Socio-political Contemporary Art Museum, Jerusalem

2008 Art of the State, Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

2009 Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, The Netherlands

2009 It won't stop until we talk, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2009 As Is, Israeli Contemporary Art, Complesso Del Vittoriano, Rome

2009 Baken-\Sammler, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2010 Di Goldene Keyt, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2011 At the Gates of Jerusalem (Osip Mandelstam), Dvir Gallery

2011 Southern Spirit, The Negev Museum of Art, Beersheba

2011 3rd Herzliya Biennial, Art TLV, The Second Strike, curated by Ory Dessau

2012 A World Apart Next Door: Glimpses into the Life of Hasidic Jews, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

2012 Pluriel: A Panorama of Contemporary Israeil Art, Villa Emerige, Paris

2012 WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

2012 Makhno’s Boys/Isaac Babel, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2012 An hour of lightM, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv

2012 Other Space, Feinberg Projects, Tel Aviv

2013 Perchance to Dream, Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York, NY

2013 WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles

• Fond National d'art contemporain, France
• The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
• Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, Paris
• Lac Collection, Geneva
• Marcel Brient collection, Paris
• Neufite Vie Collection, Paris
• Sherman Collection, Sydney
• The Jewish Museum, NYC
• The Tel Aviv Museum of Art
• La Maison Rouge, Fondation A. de Galbert, Paris
• The Phoenix collection of Art, Tel Aviv

1997 The Gérard Lévy Prize for a Young Photographer, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

2002 Ministry of Science, Culture and the Sports Prize, Israel

2003 America Israel Cultural Foundation Prize

2005 Leon Constantiner Prize for Israeli Photography, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

2011 Sony World Photography Awards, WPO (World Photography Organisation)