Video Still from Moby Dick by Guy Ben-Ner, courtesy of Postmasters Gallery

(Photo: Frank Schwere)

Guy Ben-Ner
Video Artist
Most parents find it difficult to get work done with their kids around, but not Ben-Ner. The Israeli video artist and stay-at-home dad (who came to New York for the Columbia M.F.A. program) gives his children Amir, 4, and Elia, 10, star billing. In January, Ben-Ner debuted two videos at Postmasters Gallery (where he also built a carpeted playground “so that the kids would have something to do at the opening”); this summer, he’ll represent Israel at the Venice Biennale—a breakthrough slot that marks him as a standout among the concentration of new talent from the Middle East. At P.S. 1, he’ll show the silent video Moby Dick, a slapstick performance staged in the Ben-Ner family kitchen and shown at MoMA QNS in 2004.