Tamara Moyzes lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic. Born in 1975 in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, she studied painting at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts and Design and in Israel at the Avni Institute of Fine Arts, Tel Aviv, and the Bezazel Academy of Fine Art and Design, Jerusalem. She gained an MA in 2005 from New Media department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

Tamara Moyzes is a politically committed and internationally active artist, curator and documentary maker who primarily produces video art, often presented in installation form. Exploring themes such as gender, racism, antiziganism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, discrimination faced by ethnic minorities, issues of nationalism and religious conflicts, and – as a curator – Orientalism, her works show a long commitment to artistic activism. She believes art is a form of protest that should unmask social conditions, not through academic statements, but instead through direct artistic interventions. Using the tools of irony, satire and rendering the lived experience visible, Moyzes aims to shed light on social injustice. With her practice rooted in her Hungarian, Jewish and Roma origins and her life spent in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Israel, Tamara Moyzes works from the perspective of the intersection of minorities, in particular Jews and Roma. In this way, she underlines the urgency of the issues she presents to her audience, much of it difficult to face.

Her 2007 video piece entitled Miss Roma exemplifies her conceptual approach towards the issues she aims to bring into view through her work. The piece was inspired by her own and Jana Bluchová’s experiences of discrimination: she has been denied access to numerous places in the Czech Republic on the basis of her heritage. Before subjecting her protagonist to a so-called ‘whitewashing’ (the application of white make-up to the skin), Moyzes begins her two-minute video by listing the clubs, shops and restaurants where she and Jana Bluchová have been denied entrance in this self-experiment. In Miss Roma, Moyzes places a magnifying glass over the cultural segregation of Roma in Czech society, as well as the inclusion and exclusion mechanisms of the dominant beauty ideology. Her video challenges the necessary price ethnic minorities often need to pay for the much-hoped acceptance and inclusion, namely the visible assimilation of the body to the normative criteria of the white mainstream.

Tamara Moyzes’ most recent projects (e.g. Artivism) are expressed through activism and happenings. Moyzes continues to present her reaction to and commentary on current social issues through actions in the public space and through the use of media as a tool for political art.

www.tamaramoyzes.info

Solo Exhibitions

2007
TV t_error – Entrance Gallery, Prague

2009
Welcome to Prague – Output Gallery, Prague
Family Happiness – Czech Parliament, Prague

2010
She Devil 4 – Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome

2011
Welcome to Prague – Czech Centre in Stockholm, Sweden
‘Protocol’ Mamuta – Daniela Passal Art & Media Centre, Jerusalem
Inte(G)Race – Karlin Studios, Prague

2013
Dictionary – Willy Brandt Centre, Jerusalem
Artivism – The Brno House of Art, Brno

2014
Forbidden ART – solo exhibition, Gallery8, Budapest
Artivism – Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin

2015
Polish Bourekas – Mamuta Gallery, Hansen, Jerusalem

Group Exhibitions

2009
Formáty transformace 89-09 – The Brno House of Arts, Brno
The Other Kind of Blue – Czech selection, Gallery Václava Špály, Prague
Family Happiness – Czech Ministry of Culture, Prague

2010
Transgression – Videotage Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Mute Signs – Barcsay Hall, Budapest
Kick the Habit – Festival SOHO in Ottakring, Vienna

2011
Mediations Biennial, Poznan

2012
Middle East Europe – DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague
Stimmen der Roma – Gasteig, Munich
Reclaiming Identity – Steirischer Herbst, Graz

2013
Vot Ken You Mach? – Kunsthaus Dresden
Video.Art.Activism – Galerie Kai Dikhas, Berlin
Women Commentators – Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
Die Schweiz ist keine Insel: In lästiger Gesellschaft – Shedhalle, Rote Fabrik, Zurich

2014
Have A Look Into My Life! – Aubette, Place Kléber, Strasbourg & Graz
[silence]: A Holocaust Exhibition – The Ludwig Museum, Budapest

Source: Lith Bahlmann; the artist