Gannit Ankori

Professor of Fine Arts; and Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator, Rose Art Museum

Departments/Programs

Fine Arts

Degrees

Hebrew University Jerusalem, Ph.D.
Hebrew University Jerusalem, B.A.

Expertise

Gannit Ankori is the Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum and Professor of Fine Arts and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Ankori has published, lectured and taught extensively about modern and contemporary art from a global perspective, with emphasis on issues pertaining to gender, nationalism, identity, religion, trauma, exile, hybridity, disability and their manifestations in the creative arts. Her geographical regions of expertise include the Middle East and Mexico.

Gannit is internationally renowned for her ground breaking scholarship on Frida Kahlo. Her books include "Frida Kahlo and San Francisco" (2020; co-authored with Circe Henestrosa); "Frida Kahlo / Critical Lives" (2013; reissued in English and Chinese in 2018); “Frida Kahlo: Art, Life Diary” (2004; in Hebrew); and "Imaging Her Selves: Frida Kahlo’s Poetics of Identity and Fragmentation" (2002). Major essays include: “Frida Kahlo: The Fabric of her Art” (Tate Modern, 2005); and “Frida Kahlo: Posing, Composing, Exposing” published in conjunction with the 2018 Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition “Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up.” Her books and articles have been published in English, Hebrew, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.

In close collaboration with Indigenous Mexican fashion curator, Circe Henestrosa, Gannit has also been involved in multiple curatorial projects pertaining to Kahlo, in London, New York, San Francisco, and Holland. A focused and beautiful show titled “Frida Kahlo: Pose” is scheduled to open this spring at the Rose Art Museum on campus.

Another area of expertise is Israeli and Palestinian art. Ankori recently published a comprehensive essay titled "Raida Adon's Liminal Spaces of Art: Journeys, Rituals, and Intervisuality" (Israeli Museum of Jerusalem, 2020; She also edited a volume of texts by the South African-born, Israeli artist Larry Abramson, titled “The Artist is a Spy” (2019, in Hebrew). Her book "Palestinian Art " (2006) was awarded a “Polonsky Prize for Originality and Creativity in the Humanistic Disciplines”. She has also curated exhibitions on Israeli and Palestinian art, among them, "Home" (1997) with Jack Persekian at Gallery Anadiel, Jerusalem; "Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean" (2012) at the Rose Art Museum; "Rose Video 07: Nira Pereg" (2015) and "Ben Hagari: Potter's Will" (2016) also at the Rose Art Museum, where she had served as Faculty Curator and Director of Integrated Arts. The latter exhibitions were accompanied by catalogues which she edited and to which she contributed scholarly essays.

Gannit Ankori joined Brandeis in the fall of 2010. In 2013 she was appointed Chair of the Creative Arts School Council and in 2014 became the founding Head of the Division of Creative Arts, a position she filled until the summer of 2019. Before coming to Brandeis, she served as the Henya Sharef Professor of Humanities and Chair of the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was also a Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University and at Tufts University's School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Profile

Gannit Ankori is the Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator of the Rose Art Museum and Professor of Fine Arts and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Ankori has published, lectured and taught extensively about modern and contemporary art from a global perspective, with emphasis on issues pertaining to gender, nationalism, identity, religion, trauma, exile, hybridity, disability and their manifestations in the creative arts. Her geographical regions of expertise include the Middle East and Mexico.

Gannit is internationally renowned for her ground breaking scholarship on Frida Kahlo. Her books include "Frida Kahlo and San Francisco" (2020; co-authored with Circe Henestrosa); "Frida Kahlo / Critical Lives" (2013; reissued in English and Chinese in 2018); “Frida Kahlo: Art, Life Diary” (2004; in Hebrew); and "Imaging Her Selves: Frida Kahlo’s Poetics of Identity and Fragmentation" (2002). Major essays include: “Frida Kahlo: The Fabric of her Art” (Tate Modern, 2005); and “Frida Kahlo: Posing, Composing, Exposing” published in conjunction with the 2018 Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition “Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up.” Her books and articles have been published in English, Hebrew, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese and Chinese.

In close collaboration with Indigenous Mexican fashion curator, Circe Henestrosa, Gannit has also been involved in multiple curatorial projects pertaining to Kahlo, in London, New York, San Francisco, and Holland. A focused and beautiful show titled “Frida Kahlo: Pose” is scheduled to open this spring at the Rose Art Museum on campus.

Another area of expertise is Israeli and Palestinian art. Ankori recently published a comprehensive essay titled "Raida Adon's Liminal Spaces of Art: Journeys, Rituals, and Intervisuality" (Israeli Museum of Jerusalem, 2020; She also edited a volume of texts by the South African-born, Israeli artist Larry Abramson, titled “The Artist is a Spy” (2019, in Hebrew). Her book "Palestinian Art " (2006) was awarded a “Polonsky Prize for Originality and Creativity in the Humanistic Disciplines”. She has also curated exhibitions on Israeli and Palestinian art, among them, "Home" (1997) with Jack Persekian at Gallery Anadiel, Jerusalem; "Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean" (2012) at the Rose Art Museum; "Rose Video 07: Nira Pereg" (2015) and "Ben Hagari: Potter's Will" (2016) also at the Rose Art Museum, where she had served as Faculty Curator and Director of Integrated Arts. The latter exhibitions were accompanied by catalogues which she edited and to which she contributed scholarly essays.

Gannit Ankori joined Brandeis in the fall of 2010. In 2013 she was appointed Chair of the Creative Arts School Council and in 2014 became the founding Head of the Division of Creative Arts, a position she filled until the summer of 2019. Before coming to Brandeis, she served as the Henya Sharef Professor of Humanities and Chair of the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was also a Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University and at Tufts University's School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Courses Taught

CA	125a	Provocative Art: Outside the Comfort Zone
FA	76a	Palestinian and Israeli Art, Film and Visual Culture: Intersecting Visions
FA	178a	Frida Kahlo: Art, Life and Legacy
FA/NEJS	183a	Breaking Boundaries in Contemporary Israeli Culture

Awards and Honors

Invitation to conduct research at the Tapies Foundation in Barcelona Spain on curatorial practice (2019)

Theodore and Jane Norman Fund for Faculty Research and Creative Projects (2018 - 2019)

The Artis Grant Program (2015)

Theodore and Jane Norman Fund for Faculty Research and Creative Projects (2014)

Bronfman Brandeis-Israel Award (2013)

Polonsky Prize for Originality and Creativity in the Humanistic Disciplines for the book "Palestinian Art" (Reaktion Books, London, 2006) (2007)

Publication award from the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fund (2005)

Golda Meir Fellowship (1997)

The Alan Bronfman Prize for outstanding PhD dissertations (1996)

The Scheinbrun Post-Doctoral Fellowship (1996)

Grupo de Mujeres Award from Mexico (1993 - 1994)

The Herzceg Fund Fellowship for outstanding research in the field of Gender Studies (1991 - 1992)

The Joseph H. Hazen Prize for Literature on the Plastic Arts of the 20th Century (1989)

Scholarship

Frida Kahlo - Documentary Film. Advisor and Interviewee Gannit Ankori. Exhibition on Screen, Seventh Art Production, Brighton, UK, 2020. (forthcoming)

Ankori, Gannit [with Circe Henestrosa]. Frida Kahlo and San Francisco. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Hirmer and University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Ankori, Gannit, Advising Curator. Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving. March 21 - May 2, 2021. de Young Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco.

Ankori, Gannit. ""Raida Adon's Liminal Spaces of Art: Journeys, Rituals and Intervisuality"." Raida Adon: Strangeness. 2020 ed. Jerusalem: Israel Museum of Jerusalem, 2020. Hebrew and Arabic pp. 20-39; English pp. 114-127.

Ankori, Gannit. "Frida Kahlo and the Construction of Identity." Keynote in conjunction with the Exhibition Frida Kahlo and Mexican Modernism, North Carolina Museum of Art. November 14, 2019.

Ankori, Gannit, ed. The Artist is a Spy: Larry Abramson. Tel-Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz Ha-Meuchad, 2019.

Ankori, Gannit. ""Frida Kahlo: Visuality and Disability"." Curators' Talk: Frida Kahlo, Appearances Can Be Deceiving. The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY. February 9, 2019.

Ankori, Gannit. "Alternative Narratives: Framing the topic; Moderating the Conversation; Introducing the Artists." Alternative Narratives of Israeli and Palestinian Art, UCLA, The Nazaryan Center. February 19, 2019.

Ankori, Gannit. "Larry Abramson: The Artist is a Spy, a pre-history." Book launch for Gannit Ankori editor, Larry Abramson: The Artist is a Spy, Tel Aviv, 2019, Tel Aviv Museum of Art. HaKibbutz Ha-Meuchad, 2019.

CURATORIAL ADVISOR Ankori, Gannit. Frida Kahlo: Appearances can be Deceiving. Solo Show, February 6-May 12, 2019. Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York.

Ankori, Gannit. ""Frida Kahlo: Posing, Composing, Exposing"." Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up. Ed. Claire Wilcox and Circe Henestrosa. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2018. 130-159; 197-198.

Ankori, Gannit. ""Phantom Limbs: Frida Kahlo's Art of Trauma and Loss." Frida Kahlo: Inside and Outside, London: Victoria and Albert Museum. November 2-3, 2018.

Ankori, Gannit. Frida Kahlo [CHINESE EDITION]. Trans. Heilongliang Publishers via CA-Link Agency Beijing. Beijing: Heilongjiang, 2018.

Ankori, Gannit. Frida Kahlo [NEW EDITION]. 2013. London: Reaktion Books, 2018.

Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up. co-curated exhibition; scholarly content and curatorial advisor Gannit Ankori Show, June 16-November 4, 2018. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Ankori, Gannit. "KEYNOTE LECTURE: Israeli Art - Inside Out." (Dis) Place: New Directions In the History of Art in Israel. Tel-Aviv University. May 17-18, 2017.

Ankori, Gannit. "Palestinian Art without Boundaries." New Perspectives on Contemporary Palestinian Art, Tel Aviv Museum, Organized by Umm al-Fahem. January 5, 2017.

Ankori, Gannit. "The Rose Art Museum and the Israel Museum of Jerusalem; Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London." American Association of Museum Curators: Innovative Global Partnerships. ONLINE WEBINAR. October 27, 2017.

Ankori, Gannit. "The State of the Arts in Israel: VISUAL CULTURE." Israeli Artists in Conversation with Israel. Berkeley University. April 5-7, 2017.

Ankori, Gannit (with Samir Srouji). "Landscape, Language and Light: A Dialogue." Shimon Attie: Facts on the Ground. New York and London: Nazraeli Press, 2016

Ankori, Gannit with Anat Danon-Sivan, ed. Ben Hagari: Potter's Will. Bi-lingual exhibition catalogue ed. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Rose Art Museum, 2016.

Ankori, Gannit with Timna Seligman, ed. Nira Pereg: The Right to Clean. bi-lingual exhibition catalogue ed. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Rose Art Museum, 2016.

Ankori, Gannit, curator. Ben Hagari: Potter's Will. Multimedia Installation Show, February 11 - June 5, 2016. The Rose Art Museum, Waltham.

Ankori, Gannit. "Creation Myths and Mythic Self-Creations." Ben Hagari: Potter's Will. Ed. Gannit Ankori and Anat Danon Sivan. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Rose Art Museum, 2016. unpaginated.

Ankori, Gannit. "Rifts and Rituals." Nira Pereg: The Right to Clean. Ed. Gannit Ankori and Timna Seligman. Jerusalem: Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Rose Art Museum, 2016. 7-16; 78-82.

Ankori, Gannit, curator. Rose Video 07: Nira Pereg. Video Installation Show, September - December 2015. The Rose Art Museum, Waltham.

Ankori, Gannit. "A Poetics of Absence and Silence: Miyako Ishiuchi’s Frida Kahlo Photographs." Frida by Ishiuchi. 2015 ed. Mexico City: RM/Museo Frida Kahlo, 2015. unpaginated.

Ankori, Gannit. "The Assassination and its Aftermath: Cultural Perspectives." Rabin Memorial Event - 10 Years After. Mandel Center for the Humanities, Brandeis University. November 4, 2015.

Ankori, Gannit. ""Visualizing Layered Traumata: The Holocaust in Contemporary Israeli Art"." The Shoah in Israeli Culture, Memory and Politics, Brandeis University. April 28, 2014.

Ankori, Gannit. "Art and Despair." Combatting Despair Through Art. Central Square Theater, Cambridge. April 5, 2014.

Ankori, Gannit. "Keynote: "Israeli Art and Politics"." Israel Studies in the 21st Century: Challenges and Dilemmas, Jindal Global University, New Delhi, India. December 9-10, 2013.

Ankori, Gannit. "On Frida Kahlo." Lecture and book launch organized by University of Chicago Press. 92nd Street Y, New York City. November 12, 2013.

Ankori, Gannit. "Reflections on Israeli Art – from ‘Promised’ to ‘Compromised’ Land." Lecture in conjunction with opening of exhibition of Israeli video art and photography. The Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase SUNY, NY. September 22, 2013.

Ankori, Gannit. Frida Kahlo. London: Reaktion Books, 2013.

Ankori, Gannit and Dabney Hailey CURATORS. 100 Steps to the Mediterranean. 2012. Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University.

Ankori, Gannit and Dabney Hailey, ed. Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean. exhibition catalogue with essays by Gannit Ankori and Dabney Hailey, Dor Guez, Samir Srouji: Rose Art Museum and New England University Press, 2012.

Ankori, Gannit. "Gender, Religion and the Power of Art." The International Conference on New Understandings of Gender, Love and the Jewish Family. Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Jerusalem, Israel. December 26, 2012.

Ankori, Gannit. "Larry Abramson's Archeology of Trauma." Larry Abramson: Paintings 1975-2010. Tel-Aviv: Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, 2010. pp. 18-37 (Hebrew); 380-401 (English).

Ankori, Gannit. "Frida Kahlo." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. vol 3 vols. 2008.

Ankori, Gannit. "Religion and the Gendered Body [session in honor of Caroline Walker Bynum; convener: President Drew Faust]." Gender and Religion: Authority, Power and Agency, Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies and Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University. April 2008.

Ankori, Gannit. "Visual Epistemology: The Study of Art as a Quest for Knowledge (Keynote Lecture)." Inside Knowledge: (Un)doing Methodologies, Imaging Alternatives, University of Amsterdam’s Amsterdam School for Visual Studies. May 29, 2007.

Ankori, Gannit with Samir Srouji and students from Harvard Divinity School and Tufts' School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A Space of Light and Reflection - An Installation. Group Show, 2006. Andover Chapel, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University, Cambridge.

Ankori, Gannit. "A Faith of Their Own: Women Artists Re-vision Religion." Border Crossings: 25 Year Anniversary of the Women Studies in Religion Program, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University. February 3, 2006.

Ankori, Gannit. "Moses, Freud and Frida Kahlo." New Perspectives on Freud’s Moses and Monotheism. Ed. Ilana Pardes and Ruth Ginsberg. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2006. 135-148.

Ankori, Gannit. "Re-Visioning Faith: Christian and Muslim Allusions in Contemporary Palestinian Art." Third Text 20. 3/4 (2006): 379-390.

Ankori, Gannit. "Response (Period Piece: Reflections on its Art Historical Context )." Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 22. 2 (2006): 140-144 and figs. 3-6.

Ankori, Gannit. "The ‘Dis-Orientalist’ Art of Raeda Saadeh." Biennale of Sydney: Zones of Contact. Ed. Charles Merewether. Sydney:, 2006. 240.

Ankori, Gannit. Palestinian Art. London: Reaktion Books, 2006.

Ankori, Gannit and Samir Srouji. "Art and Visions for Jerusalem." Jerusalem 2050, MIT, Cambridge MA. April 9, 2005.

Ankori, Gannit. "Frida Kahlo: The Fabric of her Art." Frida Kahlo. Ed. Emma Dexter and Tanya Barson. London: Tate Publications, 2005. 31-46.

Ankori, Gannit. "Frida Kahlo’s Ethics and Aesthetics of Hybridity." The Many Faces of Frida, Tate Modern, London. Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2005.

Ankori, Gannit. "Islamic Elements in Contemporary Palestinian Art: Hybridity, Secularization and 'Dis-Orientalism'." College Art Association 92nd Annual Conference; session devoted to 'Islam and Contemporary Art', Seattle. February 20, 2004.

Ankori, Gannit, CURATOR. Frida Kahlo’s Intimate Family Picture. 2003. The Jewish Museum, New York.

Ankori, Gannit. "’Dis-Orientalisms’ – Displaced Bodies/ Embodied Displacements in Contemporary Palestinian Art." Uprootings / Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration. Ed. Sara Ahmed, Claudia Castañeda, Anne-Marie Fortier, Mimi Sheller. Oxford: Berg Press, 2003. 59-90.

Ankori, Gannit. Frida Kahlo: Diary, Art, Life. Ben-Shemen: Modan Publishing, 2003.

Ankori, Gannit. "Frida Kahlo, Moses and Freud." New Perspectives on Freud’s Moses and Monotheism, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Center for Comparative Literature. June 5-6, 2002.

Ankori, Gannit. Imaging Her Selves: Frida Kahlo's Poetics of Identity and Fragementation. Westport and London: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002.

Ankori, Gannit. "Bodies of Knowledge: The Art of Larry Abramson." Larry Abramson: Eventus Nocturnos. Haifa: Haifa Museum of Art, 2001. 22-33, 84-94.

Ankori, Gannit. "Frida Kahlo: Anatomy, Theology and Art." Gender, Health and Body: Changing Relationships, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Lafer Center of Women and Gender Studies. April 22-23, 2001.

Ankori, Gannit. "The Jewish Venus." Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness and Modern Art. Ed. Matthew Baigell and Milly Heyd. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001. 238-258..

Ankori, Gannit and Tally Tamir. "A Portfolio of Contemporary Photography: Individual Voices from the Margins." The Jerusalem Review 4. (2000): 70-72 and illustrations.

Ankori, Gannit. "The Official History of Israeli Art: A Story of Repressions." Avoda Ivrit: Hebrew Labor, Ein Harod Art Museum. May 1, 1998.

Ankori, Gannit (with Ziva Amishai-Maisels), Paula E. Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore eds. "Art." Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. 1997.

Ankori, Gannit and Jack Persekian CO-CURATORS. Home. Israeli and Palestinian Artists, group Show, 1997. Anadiel Gallery, Jerusalem.

Ankori, Gannit. "Behind the Walls: The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Contemporary Palestinian Art." Jewish Art [special issue edited by Bianca Kühnel, The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art] (1997): 575-585..

Ankori, Gannit. "Transfigurer le banal en métaphore: l’art de Khalil Rabah." Artistes palestiniens contemporains. Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, 1997. 72-77.

Ankori, Gannit. "Voies choisies: l’art de Souleiman Mansour." Artistes palestiniens contemporains. Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe, 1997. 66-71.

Ankori, Gannit. "Mapping the Homeland in Israeli and Palestinian Art." One Hundred Years of Culture in Eretz-Yisrael, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 1996.

Ankori, Gannit. "Morphology of Memory: The Art of Yocheved Weinfeld." Long Memory/ Short Memory. Ed. Nella Cassouto. Raleigh, North Carolina:, 1996. 46-50.

Ankori, Gannit. "Israelische und palästinensische Kunst: Punkte der Berührung, Punkte des Gegensatzes." Wohin? Israelisch-Palästinensische Kunstausstellung. Ed. Gabriele Heins. Hamburg:, 1995. 10-24.

Ankori, Gannit. The Immigrant’s Daughter: Frida Kahlo’s Other Identity. Proc. of Eleventh World Congress of Jewish Studies. Jerusalem: 1994.

Ankori, Gannit. "The Hidden Frida: Covert Jewish Elements in the Art of Frida Kahlo." Jewish Art 19/20. (1993): 224-247.

Ankori, Gannit. "Beyond the Wall: On Some Tangential Points between Palestinian Art and Pre-State Israeli Painting.." Kav Art Quarterly 10. (1990): 163-169.

Ankori, Gannit. "New York: Robert Morris and TODT." Kav Art Quarterly 9. (1989): 54-67.

Ankori, Gannit. "Yocheved Weinfeld’s Portraits of the Self." Woman’s Art Journal 10. 2 (1989): 22-27 and inside cover.

Ankori, Gannit. "The Other Jerusalem: Images of the Holy City in Contemporary Palestinian Painting." Jewish Art 14. (1988): 74-92.