Beautiful: Assaf Ziv's The Pool

BeautifulMag Covers

Notes

(c) BeautifulMagTM 2005 – 2011. BeautifulMag is the trademark of BeautifulMedia. All rights reserved. Use of this web site is subject to terms and conditions of use. Your continued use of this web site is deemed acceptance of these terms. You may display this web site on your computer device for your own personal use only. Republishing or retransmitting or any other use (electronic or otherwise) of any of the content of this web site without the prior written consent of BeautifulMedia is strictly forbidden. BeautifulMedia respects other parties copyright. If you believe that any of our content infringes on your copyright please contact us immediately.

ASSAF ZIV DISCOVERED HE WAS ATTRACTED TO OTHER MEN WHEN HE WAS 15 YEARS OLD. HE EXPERIENCED HIS FIRST LOVE WITH A SCHOOLMATE, WITH WHOM HE ALSO DISCOVERED THE ART OF DARKROOM PHOTOGRAPHY. EMBRACING BOTH HIS SEXUALITY AND HIS PASSION FOR THE ART, ASSAF HAS MADE IT HIS OBJECTIVE TO USE PHOTOGRAPHY IN EXPRESSING HIS MOST INTIMATE AND PERSONAL EMOTIONS.

Born in Tel Aviv, Assaf Ziv began exploring the world of fashion and art at very young age. Grown up, Assaf began his career working at a variety of Israeli magazines and gained wide recognition for his pioneering work in fashion journalism and art direction. Hungry for more Assaf tried his luck in Paris as a makeup artist and he soon found himself working with fashion icons such as Chantal Thomass and Yves Saint Laurent. After 2 years in Europe’s fashion capital, Assaf returned to his homeland where he picked up his activities in journalism and art direction and in no time he achieved status as the number one fashion stylist in Israel. His artistic ambitions did not stop there. Ready to expand his style influence in the United States, Assaf Ziv moved to New York where hE continued his career as stylemaker with as much ebergy and success as he enjoyed in Israel.

After having followed a program in Helen Rubinstein’s Pavilion for Contemporary Art at the age of 6, Assaf Ziv has never been able to turn his back to expressing himself through his own creativity. Driven by a strong conceptual vision, and inspired by vintage photography, the tranquility of the Mediterranean Sea, male culture, gay sexuality, kink and passion, AssafZiv composed his most personal collection, Going Into Intimate Details. These paintings and photographs convey intimacy through self-portraits and images of people from Assaf’s private life. It is a collage of his own memories ranging from pure innocence to darker underground fantasies. His series The Pool is part of this most intimate collection of work.

The Pool is one of Assaf Ziv’s latest photography projects and was recently selected to exhibit in the 9th annual Seattle Erotic Art Festival. Not a small accomplishment considering the Festival received almost 2,000 submissions and could only show less than 200. About The Pool Assaf said: “This project is dealing with Gay sexuality, life and death. The meaning of gay life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, social ties, consciousness, and touches many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, ontology, good and evil, free will, the soul, reborn and the afterlife, the conceptions of God, the existence of God and the God of beauty in the male form.” Knowing Assaf Ziv’s success story, it doesn’t come as a surprise that his Pool 8, exhibited as photography infused into wood panel was selected by the jury as first prize winner of best Winning Art 2011. –BM-

ASSAF ZIV | BEAUTIFULMAG