Description
An entirely new retrospective survey of the work of Israeli artist Orna Ben-Ami, including her monumental public works, from the early 1990s to the present day.
Orna Ben-Ami sculpts by cutting and welding iron. She also creates unique artworks by attaching her iron sculptures to flat photographic prints. The artist first started to learn gold- and silversmithing at the Jerusalem Technological Centre, before studying sculpture at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC between 1990 and 1992. She became fully engaged in sculpture in 1994, using iron as the principal raw material both for her artistic expression and for the preservation of private and collective memories, particularly the memories of transient and displaced people.
This retrospective volume presents 195 key artworks, including public sculptures, covering the major influences Ben-Ami has drawn upon since the early 1990s. These include Jews in Europe that were forced to flee during WWII, Syrian and African refugees from the last 30 years, the destruction of life and houses in the Israeli villages around the Gaza Strip during the October 7 attack in 2023, and Palestinian child refugees within the Gaza Strip.
This catalogue accompanies the exhibition Orna Ben-Ami, Displacement and Memory at The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC, September 6 through December 7, 2025.
Ethan Bronner is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Israel bureau chief and a senior editor for the Middle East at Bloomberg News.
David Furchgott is the former director of the International Sculpture Center and founder of International Arts & Artists.
Dr Orit Shaham Gover is chief curator at The Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.
Hana Kofler is a veteran independent curator. She was the chief curator of the Open Museum at Tefan and at the Beit-Ha’Gefen, the Arab-Jewish Cultural Center in Haifa.
Dr Gideon Ofrat is a leading Israeli art historian, art curator, and art critic, who specializes in Israeli art.
Dr Jack Rasmussen is the director and curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center
Table of Contents
- Foreword by Dr. Jack Rasmussen
- Introduction by David M. Furchgott
- Dialogue with the Artists by Dr. Jack Rasmussen
- The Iron Weight of Grief by Ethan Bronner
- Letter from a Refugee by Aziz Kalo
- Displacement and Memory
- Neither Here nor There • A poem by the artist
- George Kadish’s Photographs
- And Man Was Forgotten by Dr. Gideon Ofrat
- Tearing “Kri’ahAH” by Hana Kofler
- Public and Private Commissions
- The Sources of Orna Ben-Ami’s Art by Dr. Orit Shaham Gover
- Her Luminous Name and Fortified Hand by Riki Daskal
- Orna Ben-Ami, Curriculum Vitae
- Index
- Artist’s Acknowledgments
- Photo Credits
