Tamar Zohara Ettun

Tamar Zohara Ettun was Chinati’s artist in residence for August 2020. Her experience culminated in a performative lecture based on work developed while at Chinati. Drawing on wide-ranging research and personal experience, Ettun addressed the dark side of empathy, processes of healing and compassion fatigue in the midst of a global pandemic. She conjured her empathic demon Lilit, whose origins are in Jewish tradition, and screened a new video set in the Arena. The online event ended with a participatory meditation based on Yvonne Rainer’s Hand Film (1966). To view a recording of the performance, click here.

Ettun is a sculptor and a performance artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She has had exhibitions and performances at Pioneer Works, PERFORMA, Sculpture Center, Madison Square Park, Art Omi Sculpture Garden, the Barrick Museum UNLV, the Watermill Center, e-flux, Herzelia Biennial, Knockdown Center, Bryant Park, Socrates Sculpture Park, Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum, and Uppsala Art Museum, among others.

She has received awards and fellowships from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Moca Tucson Artist Residency, Franklin Furnace, MacDowell Fellowship, Marble House Project, RECESS, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Art Production Fund, and Iaspis. Ettun founded the Moving Company, an artist’s collective creating performances in public spaces and a social engagement project with Brooklyn teens hosted by the Brooklyn Museum.

Ettun received her MFA from Yale University in 2010 where she was awarded the Alice English Kimball Fellowship. She studied at Cooper Union in 2007, while earning her BFA from Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem. Ettun has been a visiting artist at many institutions, including Pratt Institute, Yale School of Art, New York University Steinhardt and Performance Studies, the School of Visual Art, Hunter College, Rutgers University, Christie’s Education, University of Las Vegas, Pace University, and Katonah Museum. Ettun teaches at Columbia University School of Arts, Lehman College, and the New School Parsons School of Design.