Oz Almog

Oz Almog (born 15.04.1956, in Kfar Saba, Israel) is a highly renowned Austrian-Israeli artist and author, whose works have been exhibited in more than a few dozens museums and galleries worldwide– from Vienna to Tel Aviv, from London, Berlin and Amsterdam to Balkan… Each of his exhibition catalogs is a book, which transcends the usual presentation of one artist and his work, turning it into an indispensable lexicon of Jewish personalities and phenomena.
Throughout the ’80s, while still a student of Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Oz Almog was recognized as one of the most influential off-scene underground art figures in Austria, while in ‘90s he turned his interest into artistic reconstructions of complex social issues, including Armchair Assassination (symbolic execution of anti-Semitic writers, 1988), Birth of a Myth (evolution of a personality cult, 1994), The Psychonaut and His Mind Navigator (1995), Block Brut (auto-erotic deaths, 1997) and Shaheed (Suicide Terror phenomena, 1997).
Him Too?? Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession (400 portraits of famous Jewish personalities, 1999) represents Oz Almog’s artistic analysis of hidden forms of anti-Semitism and, in the same time, radical de-construction of The Artist as a phenomenon. After being shown at the Jewish Museum Vienna, the installation continued to Israel, Germany, the Netherlands and dozens museums worldwide …
Action T-4: Opera Euthanasia - part of the Memorial exhibition at the Provincial Museum of Upper Austria in Linz in the year 2000 - featured a child’s bedroom with over 350 paintings of prominent Nazis, serial killers and other criminals and once again produced a massive public reaction.
Viennese en face - Portraits of Careers, with 350 paintings of prominent Viennese personalities, was shown from October 2000 to April 2001 at the Hermes Villa (part of the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna). It has been followed by Towards the Light of Dawn - Jewish Heroes of the Soviet Union (Dem Morgenrot Entgegen).
In 2003/04 Oz Almog presented Kosher Nostra - Jewish Gangsters in America 1890 - 1980 in the Jewish Museum Vienna. Although exhibition raised more than few eyebrows it turned into great success and was later shown in other museums and galleries.
2007/08 Oz Almog gathered a number of international artists in taking up the challenge of presenting Jewish concepts and symbolism in a form accessible to children in the exhibition “Judaica Kid’s Box”
In 2010 Oz Almog showed in Jewish Museum of Vienna the exhibition “Walls of Sound – Jewish Worlds of Music“ featuring Jewish music and Jewish musicians.

(The biography of Oz Almog is based on official data published by the Jewish Museum of Vienna i.a. and compiled press articles.)