Naomi Ben-Shahar is an artist and curator based in New York. She is interested in connectivity and the material interplay between photography and craft; her work poses questions about technology and intimacy, environmentalism, and feminist identity. She works with photography, weaving, painting, and video.

Her work was shown at the New Museum, Printed Matter, Baxter Street Camera Club, Feature, Inc., Gorney Bravin & Lee, FORMah, White Columns, and the Yeh Art Gallery at St. John's University in New York; FA Projects, London; Torch gallery, Amsterdam; Art Process, Paris, Edith Russ Site for Media Arts, Germany; the Video Art Festival in Casablanca, Morocco, and many others.

In 2023 she was a visiting artist/scholar at the American Academy in Rome, Italy and a mid-career initiative artist at Baxter St. Camera Club of NY. She also received support from UCLA Special Collections Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; Edith Russ Site for Media Arts, Germany; and Cite Internationale Universitaire de Paris.

Ben-Shahar was featured on The Art Angle podcast, and written about in the New York Times, Art in America, The New Yorker, Time Out NY, Cabinet, and Plus magazines.

She was also a founding image editor at Cabinet magazine; curated contemporary art exhibitions for the NY City Opera at Lincoln Center, taught photography at Fordham University and at the International Center of Photography in NY, and was an image editor for The New Yorker magazine and Abbeville Press.

AWARDS

2024 Thayer Short-Term Research Fellowship, UCLA Library Special Collections, Los Angeles

2023 Visiting Artist/Scholar, The American Academy in Rome, Italy

2023 Mid-Career Initiative Artist, Baxter Street Camera Club of New York

2007 Fellow, Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris, Paris, France

2003 Fellow, Edith Russ Site for Media Arts, Oldenburg, Germany

2002 Fellow, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM

2001 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Emergency Grant

Artists' Emergency Grant, New York Foundation of the Arts, New York, NY

Artist-in-Residence, World Views, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, World Trade Center, New York, NY

SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2024 Cosmologies, Movements, and Proclamations for Peace, Naomi Ben-Shahar and Miriam Parker, Curated by Max Warsh. Yeh Art Gallery, St. John’s University, New York, NY

2023 Femina Luminous, Project Room, Baxter Street Camera Club of New York

2005 Floating Inside Out, By Art Projects, Tel Aviv, Israel

2003 Oldenburg Candles (Oldenburg), Edith Russ Site for Media Arts, Germany

2002 Project Room, Gorney, Bravin & Lee, New York

1997 Photography, Feature, Inc., New York

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024 The Golden Thread: A Fiber Art Exhibition, BravinLee Programs, 207 Front Street, New York, NY

Dreamland, FORMah gallery, New York, NY

2021 83rd Artist Members Exhibition, Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY

2014 The Botanica, Presented by AA Bronson & Michael Buhler-Rose, Invisible-Exports, New York, NY

2006 International Video Art Festival, Casablanca, Morocco

2004 Dave Allen, Naomi Ben-Shahar, Bernadette Corporation, Edith-Russ-Haus fur Mediekunst, Oldenburg, Germany.

Benefit Auction and Gala Exhibition, White Columns, New York, NY

2003 Video Invitational, fa projects, London, UK

Benefit Auction and Gala Exhibition, White Columns, New York, NY

2001 Open Studios, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY

Not A. Lear, Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston, and Art Process, Paris, France

Song Poems, Cohan Leslie and Browne, New York, NY

World Without Ground, Chase/Freedman Gallery, West Hartford, CT

Painting Not Painting, White Columns, New York, NY

2000 Not A. Lear, Torch Gallery, Amsterdam, and Art Process Gallery, Paris, France

ANP city projects, Cokkie Snoei Gallery, Rotterdam, Netherlands

OutSideIn, The Lab, Los Angeles, CA

Hairy Forearm, Feature, Inc., New York, NY

1999 Avant Guardians, traveling show organized by Surface magazine. New York, NY;, Boston, MA; Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco, CA

Would Have Had, Cabinet gallery, London, UK

1998 Inauguration Show, M du B, F, H & G Gallery, Montreal, Canada

Feed, San Francisco Camera Work, San Francisco, CA

New Ground, Gallery at 678, New York, NY

Science, Feature, Inc., New York, NY

1997 Naomi Ben-Shahar, Bill Komoski, Michelle Lopez, Feature Inc.

1996 Ab Fab, Feature, Inc., New York, NY

1993 XII, Hunter Arts Gallery, New York, NY

1989 Four Artists, Julie M. Gallery, Tel-Aviv, Israel

SPECIAL PROJECTS

2024 Performance with Miriam Parker, Yeh Art Gallery, co-hosted with the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, St. John's University, Queens, NY

Painters on Painting: essay: Naomi Ben-Shahar on Heléne Aylon's "Elusive Silver" Paintings

2009-11 New York City Opera at Lincoln Center, Contemporary Art Curator

2004-5  New Yorker Magazine, Image Editor

2000-3  Cabinet Magazine, Founding Image Editor

2001   World Without Ground, Curator, Chase/Freedman Gallery, West Hartford, CT

BOOKS AND CATALOGS

2023 Luminous Earth, an artist zine with art and text by Naomi Ben-Shahar. Distributed via Printed Matter, New York.

2011 Produced@ ed. By Sabine Himmelsbach, Edith-Russ-Haus fur Medienkunst, Revolver, Oldenburg, Germany

2004 Site Matters, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s World Trade Center Artists Residency, 1997-2001, DAP, New York, NY

2001 Song Poems, Edited and Published By Steven Hull, Los Angeles, CA

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

2023 F-Stop, A Photography Magazine, Naomi Ben-Shahar @ Baxter St at the Camera Club of NY, April, 22.

Art Daily, Artist Naomi Ben-Shahar presenting her exhibition Femina Luminous at Baxter St, June 12.

2021 The Art Angle podcast, “Artists in Residence at the World Trade Center Reflect on 9/11”, Artnet news, Sept. 10th. 

2019 Subin Kwon and Jae Hyun Ki, “Naomi Ben-Shahar,” Plus Magazine, Issue 1,

November, p. 67-73

2013 Sivan Askayo, “New York for An Advanced Woman”, At magazine, June 7th,

p. 86-87

2010 Hagit Peleg Rotem, "Art is a Different Opera," Globes Magazine, November 11th, 2010

2005 Uzi Tsur, “Naomi Ben-Shahar, Floating Inside Out,” Haaretz, July 1, p. H3

Boaz Gaon, “Rising Dawn” Maariv, June 6, pp. 60-64

2004 Martin Wenecke, “Naomi Ben-Shahar’s Video Works,” Dissertation, Oldenburg University

2002 Stephanie Cash, "Studios in the Sky," Art in America, March 2002, pp 76-81

Martha Schwendener, "Urban Renewal," Time Out NY, Jan. 3-10, p. 52

2001 Exhibition Review, The New Yorker, Dec. 24 & 31, p. 22

"World Trade Center Artists Mount Exhibition," VOA News, Dec. 4

Holland Cotter, "Trade Center Studios Were Lost, but the Artists Get Their Day," The New York Times, Dec. 3, The Arts, p. E1

Daniel Belasco, "Trying Times Again," The Jewish Week, Dec. 7, Arts & Culture section

Tara Bahrampour, "Losing a Studio, But Not a Calling," The New York Times, Sept. 30, City, p. 7

2000 Frances Richards, "Trickster Eye," Cabinet, No. 1, winter 2000, p.32

"The Future of Photography" What's Next.New.Now" interview and presentation, N3TV: City TV, Toronto (internationally syndicated), Apr. 8

 Andrea Rosen, "Art, Commerce & the Mainstream," Paris Photo, No. 8, spring, pp. 24-40

"Can't Picture This," Time Out New York, February 10-17, p. 22

 Holland Cotter, “Surging Into Chelsea,” The New York Times, Jan. 21, p. E37, 41

 "Naomi Ben-Shahar", Paris Photo European Guide, p. 32

1999 "Naomi Ben-Shahar," The 2nd Annual Avant Guardian Portfolio, Annual Edition of New American Talent, *Surface magazine, issue no. 20, pp. 128-131

1998 Mark Van Proyen, "Review," Artweek, July/Aug. p.24

Marcy Freedman, "Night and Day" SF Weekly, Apr. 29-May 5, p. 92

1996 Tom Moody, "Review," Art Papers, Nov./Dec., p. 56

Peter Schjeldahl, "Hudson’s Way," The Village Voice, 2 July, p. 87

Stewart Servetar, "Review," NYPress, 29 May, p. 78

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2003 Praxis Workshop, with Jeremy Bernstein, Edith Russ Site for Media Arts, Oldenburg, Germany

2001-2003 Fordham University, New York, NY, Dept. of Photography, Adjunct Professor

1999-2000 International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, NY

EDUCATION

2012 Curatorial Practices in the 21st Century, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York

1993 MFA, Hunter College, City University of New York, NY

1990 BA, Empire State College, State University of New York, NY