Guy Ben-Ner

Guy Ben-Ner
Born	1969 Ramat Gan, Israel
Nationality	Israeli, Jewish
Education	Columbia University, New York
Known for	Video artist

Guy Ben Ner (born in 1969) is an Israeli video artist. He lives and works in Tel Aviv, Berlin and New York City.

Guy Ben-Ner received a Bachelor of Arts in Education in 1997 from Hamidrasha School of Art, Ramat Hasharon and a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in New York City in 2003. At Columbia, he studied under the critic Jerry Saltz.

Since the early 1990s, Ben Ner has filmed a series of short videos starring himself and his family, often using the intimate spaces of their home as ad hoc set, studio, and fantastical playroom. His works are often exhibited with the simple sets and props created for the videos.

Wild Boy (2004), an adaptation of François Truffaut's 1970 film L'enfant sauvage (The Wild Child), can be shown in two forms: alone, or incorporated into an installation that re-creates a woodland set that the artist built in his kitchen, complete with a tree and a carpeted hill on which visitors may sit to watch the video. In Stealing Beauty (2007), the artist's family staged guerrilla theater in IKEA showrooms: Moving among the displays, they conduct a reasonable facsimile of family life; dishes are done, discipline imposed, discussions held (private property is a topic), and everyone tucks in for the night — in numerous beds — as IKEA's other customers wander through.

In Foreign Names (2012), Ben Ner visited nearly 100 Aroma Espresso Bar locations, left a fake name in English that would be called out at the counter when his beverage was ready, then edited all the videotaped segments to create an "ode" lamenting the disappearance of waiters.Soundtrack (2013) takes an eleven-minute scene from Steven Spielberg's 2005 movie War of the Worlds as a "ready-made" soundtrack and pairs it with footage shot in Ben Ner's kitchen in Tel Aviv, with smashing plates and combusting appliances.

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