Photo: © Alain Leloup

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Absalon (Meir Eshel), Israeli, Active France, 1964-1993.

Meir Eshel was born in Ashdod in 1964. In his youth he studied at the Air Force Technical School in Haifa. Between 1985 and 1987, after his military service, he lived in Sinai and the dunes south of Ashdod, where he built himself a log cabin and made a living making jewelry. In 1987 he emigrated to Paris, where he became friendly with artists such as Christian Boltanski and Annette Messager and enrolled in art studies. During this period he adopted the name Absalon. In 1990 he met the artist Marie-Ange Guilleminot, who became his partner. In 1993 he died of an HIV-related illness.

Absalon's early works, from the end of the 1980s, dealt with the arrangement of space. In his works he created models and organized objects on the display site, out of a desire to reach "ideal forms." In the 1990s, he began constructing a series of six cells, designed to serve as a living space adapted to the needs of the artist. These were functional spaces whose internal organization enabled functional existence.

Education

1987 Studied art with Christian Boltanski, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris
1988 Institute des Hautes Études en Arts Plastiques (IHEAP)

Awards And Prizes

1988 One-Year Stipend, The Institut des hautes études en arts plastiques (IHEAP), Paris, France