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Photo: Mano Wertman

Lev Gal Wertman is a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges material, memory, and time. Emerging in the 1990s as half of the groundbreaking duo Aya & Gal, he helped shape a new artistic language that fused sculpture, sound, performance, and digital experimentation. Their installations including Naturalize, shown at major venues such as Documenta X in Kassel, explored identity, mobility, and belonging through interactive technology. Educated at the Bezalel Academy, Wertman has exhibited widely at institutions including The Israel Museum (Jerusalem), The Jewish Museum (New York), MuHKA (Antwerp), the Centre régional d’art contemporain (Sète).

After the duo’s 2001 dissolution, Wertman forged an introspective solo practice centered on memory, the body, and time. His tactile use of materials, especially latex, functioning as a “skin” between concealment and exposure became emblematic. Exhibiting repeatedly at Gordon Gallery (Tel Aviv), he later created The Steven and Beena Levy Stained Glass Window Collection in New Jersey and memorialized family lost in the Holocaust through his tattoo The Last Number 202499.

Across painting, sculpture, and installation, Wertman’s art merges the personal and the cosmic, the intimate and the historical. Each material, oil, ink, graphite, glass, or digital code becomes a vessel for silence and remembrance. an “archaeology of the future,” as he describes it. Time functions as both subject and medium: his works evolve gradually, layered like sediment. Now based in New Jersey, the shifting forest outside his studio has become an enduring collaborator, inspiring The Forest series of paintings  that trace light, breath, and seasonal change.

gal.wertman@gmail.com

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Featured Projects and Exhibitions

1993  

  • "Third Person," group exhibition, Bograshov Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curators: Michal Heiman  and Ariella Azoulay-  

  • "Antipathos: Black Humor, Irony and Cynicism in Contemporary Israeli Art," group   exhibition, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Curator Tami Katz-Freiman (catalogue)

1994   

  • One-Person Show, Bograshov Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curator: Ariella Azoulay (catalogue)-  "The Suitcase," group exhibition, Bograshov Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curator: Ariella Azoulay- "Mi Yemalel," 

  • Bograshov Gallery, Tel Aviv; Ariella Azoulay "Ta-asiya," group exhibition, 

  • Artists' House, Tel Aviv; Curator: Nehama Golan (catalogue) 

  • "90-70-90," group exhibition, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Curator: Rona Sela (catalogue) 

  • "Tel-Hai 94," contemporary art biennial; Curator: Gideon Ofrat "Export Surplus" (ArtFocus 94), group exhibition, Bograshov Gallery, Tel Aviv; Ariella   Azoulay 

1995

  • Naturalize / Soft Camera, video project, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art; Curator:  Äim Deuelle Lusky (print work)-  

  • "Terminal," group exhibition, Bograshov Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curator: Ariella Azoulay 

1996

  • Naturalize / Local Observation Point, YMCA Tower, Jerusalem, interactive computer and  postcards project, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Curator: Suzanne Landau-  Naturalize / 0.7, interactive computer project, in the exhibition "Hide and Seek,"   ArtFocus 96, Teddy Kollek Stadium, Jerusalem; Curator: Ami Barak (print work) 

1997

  • Naturalize / 0.71, in the exhibition "Out of Senses," the Museum of Contemporary Art,  MuHKA, Antwerpen, Belgium; Curator: Flor Bex (catalogue)-  

  • Naturalize / Local Observation Point, Kassel, interactive computer and postcards   project, Documenta X, Kassel, Germany; Curator: Catherine David (catalogue)
    POL/EITICS - Documenta X - the book, Globalization/Civilization 1, an article by Etienne Balibar, Jean-François Chevrier, Catherine David and Nadia Tazi, pages 774 - 783. 

  • Naturalize / A to Z, live video and internet broadcast, part of the Documenta X "100   Days" events, Kassel, Germany; Curator: Catherine David

1998

  • Naturalize / 100 m, video and internet project, The Jewish Museum, New York;   Curator: Heidi Zuckerman-Jacobson (leaflet)-  

  • Naturalize / 0.72, in the exhibition "Double rivage," Centre régional d’art contemporain,  Sète, France-  -  

  • "Condition Report: Photography in Israel Today," group exhibition, The Israel Museum,  Jerusalem; Curator: Nissan Perez 

  • "After Rabin: New Art from Israel," group exhibition, 

1999 

  • The Jewish Museum, New York;   Curator: Susan Goodman (catalogue) 1999 -  Naturalize / Skins, in the exhibition "Skin-Deep: Surface and Appearance in  Contemporary Art," 

  • The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Curator: Suzanne Landau 2003 -  "Armory Show," group exhibition, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Curator: Ellen Ginton 

2002 - 2021 

  • "The last numbe" 19 years ago I decided to have a tattoo in memory of dozens of my family members that were murdered in the death camps during the holocaust. I looked for the last number which has been tattooed to a prisoner in Auschwitz, as a symbol that  embodies and contains this disaster. The last number is 202499 and l had it tattooed on my arm. Since then, this act is part of my life and reflected in my art in different ways.
    A couple of years ago I got an email from Alexandra Rojkov, a German journalist who wanted my permission to research who was the person who originally carried this number. The results were shocking, touching upon very dark realities of that period.
    The story is published today in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin. Photos by Heather StenLink to the story in German: https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/.../auschwitz-nummer...

2007 

  • "Time Machines, Time Traps," one-person exhibition, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curator:  Amon Yariv (catalogue) PDF Catalog 1 Lev Gal Wertman_List of Work_Guggenheim Fellowship Sep. 16, 2025 “…Imagine a world that is all softness, where roads are soft and walls are soft and the floor is soft. A world in which fingers and toes and elbows and hips and ribs and heels encounter only softness. A world the body can sink into. That is the world Gal Wertman seems to offer. But this softness is different from that with which we usually wrap and pad the world around us, which is made of fabrics or furs and is meant to protect us from sharp corners. In Wertman's works, it is a softness which is not soft, which is solid, firm. Perhaps we should say: Imagine an epidermal world. A world with the touch of latex-skin. A world like a second skin…” Text by Yaara Shehori. Sep. 2007

  • “The Archaeology of the Future”, one-person exhibition, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curator:  Amon Yariv

2011 

  • “Shiri in the Solar System” one-person exhibition, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curator:  Amon Yariv (catalogue) one-person exhibition, Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv; Curator: Amon Yariv. PDF Catalog. An interview at “Haaretz” PDF version of the article I've got me under your skin. “In his most personal and revealing exhibition to date, Gal Wertman offers figures that. create a shimmering twilight zone between the body and what’s outside it”.

2017 

  • “The Steven and Beena Levy Stained Glass Window Collection by Artist Lev Gal Wertman” The Barer Family Sanctuary at Gottesman RTW Academy, Randolph NJ. USA. Project team leaders GRTW Academy: Naomi Bacharach and Beena Levy Artist: Lev Gal Wertman Stained Glass Artisan: Georgia’s Stained Glass Werks. Building Architect: KSS Architects.

2020

  • Limited-edition fine art screen prints, signed and numbered. The images are based on the original sketches and paintings made for the design of the “Steven and Beena Levy Stained Glass Window Collection”. Printing is done by Frontline Arts/PCNJ Led by Rachel Heberling, Executive Director and Mike Stark, Studio Manager.​

2021/5 - Works in progress

  • The Forest - Oil on canvas and watercolor paintings. 

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Featured Publications and Catalogs 

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Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin
PDF version of the article in German
Die letzte Auschwitz-Nummer
Der israelische Künstler Gal Wertman ließ sich vor 17 Jahren die letzte Nummer auf den Arm tätowieren, die je einem Menschen im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz gestochen worden war – im Gedenken an alle Opfer des Holocaust. Er ahnte nicht, wer sie trug. By  Alexandra Rojkov,| August 29, 2019

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“Time Machines, Time Traps" An interview at “Haaretz"
PDF version of the article
I've got me under your skin

PDF Catalog
In his most personal and revealing exhibition to date, Gal Wertman offers figures that create a shimmering twilight zone between the body and what's outside it. By Ellie Armon Azoulay | Sep. 16, 2011 

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"Shiri in the Solar System"
Gordon Gallery, TLV
PDF Catalog

Imagine a world that is all softness, where roads are soft and walls are soft and the floor is soft. A world in which fingers and toes and elbows and hips and ribs and heels encounter only softness. A world the body can sink into. That is the world Gal Wertman seems to offer. But this softness is different from that with which we usually wrap and pad the world around us, which is made of fabrics or furs and is meant to protect us from sharp corners. In Wertman's works, it is a softness which is not soft, which is solid, firm. Perhaps we should say: Imagine an epidermal world. A world with the touch of latex-skin. A world like a second skin. Text by Yaara Shehori. Sep. 2007

 

Education

Art Department, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel. 1988-1990

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