Ben Hagari’s engagement with art stems from his childhood experience of growing up in the theater. His mother worked in the theater and introduced him not only to the stage and its narratives but also to its secrets — the backstage, the costume warehouse, the make-up department, and the audience. The theater’s magic shaped his outlook in a deeply visceral way, inspiring him to create his own stages with worlds of his own making.

He creates tragicomedies in video installations that unfold in absurdist environments. Sightless characters emerge from singular worlds and perform within binary structures: positive and negative, front and rear, serious and funny, prison and refuge. Through these works, identity is stripped away to allow new forms of communication to emerge.

His works have been shown in biennials, museums, galleries, film festivals, and other venues in the US, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East including at The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, MA, SculptureCenter and The High Line in New York, Whitechapel Gallery in London, Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, KIT in Düsseldorf, The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Flora Ars+Natura in Bogotá, Fundación CALOSA in Mexico, Total Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, among others.

Hagari is recipient of the 2024 Guggenheim Foundation award and is a Lecturer at Yale School of Art and at the School of Visual Arts.