NYSS Alum Guy Yanai visited NYSS in Fall 2024 and was interviewed by Alum and Outreach & Alumni Engagement Officer Catherine Bickford.  

CATHERINE BICKFORD: Guy, tell me what it was like attending NYSS in the mid-nineties? 

GUY YANAI: We had four hours drawing every morning and then in the afternoon, four hours painting. I studied with Ophrah Shemesh and Alfred Leslie. Oh my god, Alfred Leslie. It was amazing, all of it. I’ve stayed in touch with Ophrah Shemesh. I was at her home in Sicily a few years ago. So, we had four hours drawing in the morning, then for lunch we would have art history talks with Karen Wilkin, so you didn’t really even have time to eat lunch. Then four hours of painting, then the Evening Lecture Series and we wouldn’t get home until 9pm or 9:30pm. And then Esteban Vicente would come to give critiques every couple of weeks. And he was tough. People would cry. I learned so much from him. Esteban was always dressed immaculately, in a three-piece suit. But if you looked closely, you’d see little spots of paint on his shoes. I remember one time I showed him a huge painting that I was so proud of, and it was very colorful, and he looked at me and said, “you know nothing about color”. So that’s it, the eight hours of drawing and painting every day is a gift. Because if you don’t have a studio practice you don’t have anything. No other place teaches that discipline. 

CB: Have you stayed in touch with people you met while you were at NYSS? 

GY: Absolutely. You know, art is really, really hard.  I mean, I get to go all over the world, and I never take it for granted. So the people that are on this path with you, it’s really important to cherish these very delicate relationships. I have stayed in touch with a lot of my fellow  students, even on a daily basis. One artist who just taught a Marathon here; who I am about to see in an hour. He is a really good friend. I was still calling many friends, like Carole Robb, years after I attended here. I’ve been friends with Oprah Shemesh for 25 years now. I think my mother even bought a painting of hers. So, yes, profound, deep, long, lifelong relationships. Other institutions I’ve attended somehow haven’t harnessed that.  

CB: Do you want to walk around and revisit some of the places around the School?  

GY: Yeah. I want to go upstairs. Here we are in the library. I love the smell here. I worked in the library as a student. Basically, all I did on Saturdays was to come here and go through all the books. It was a wonderful part of my education. Look, “The New Criterion.” People would get really mad at this. This was very political. I remember Hilton Kramer spoke here.  It was very controversial. Joan Snyder spoke here. She’s now having a renaissance.  I remember fierce debate after her talk.  You’d never have this kind of passion between abstraction and figuration now. I don’t think that would happen anywhere anymore. 

 CB: What message would you have for someone considering enrolling at the School? 

 GY: You have to love painting. You have to, like, love it with all your life. Because  if you’re not absolutely dedicated, you’re going to be eaten up. But if you do have it, it’s something that you will not get any other place internationally. I think places like this are so needed for attention span, which is a big problem now.  The more things are advancing, like AI, the more this is important. The more unique and valuable that this becomes. The singular, individual, human, creation. It’s crucial, you know, I’m speaking from my personal [experience], because if I didn’t have this experience, I wouldn’t be able to do the paintings that I’m doing now. Like, 1 to 1. It’s not a complex thing. That’s beautiful. 

 CB: What do you remember most from your time at the School? 

GY: I remember the Lecture Series at night, which was amazing. And every lecture was packed and, wow, I saw some lectures that I’ll never forget in my life. Leo Steinberg! I got to see Leo Steinberg speak and smoke cigarettes while he was lecturing and talking about him kissing the walls of the Sistine Chapel. I got to see William Corbett speak about his friendship with Philip Guston. I was here the day Willem de Kooning died. I remember it well. I’m getting goosebumps. And it was like the School stood still. Everyone, I think they stopped classes. I don’t know when it was, but [sometime] in 1996 and I think Mercedes Matter was here, and we just got all the students together. It was like this momentous and sad day when de Kooning died. 

Interested in being interviewed about your time at NYSS? Please reach out to Outreach & Alumni Engagement Officer Catherine Bickford. 

Guy Yanai (b. 1977 in Haifa, Israel). Lives and works between Tel Aviv, Israel and Marseille, France.

Guy Yanai’s paintings are characterized by bold colors, simplified shapes, and a flattened depth of field. In his work, the banal is reduced to geometric segments in a stripping away of references to the tangible world in favor of a visual experience that is more akin to digital imagery—drawing landscapes images from his wanderings around the globe, or French filmography scenes which he reminiscence through, for example. He often chooses everyday objects and spaces as his subjects, flattening and abstracting them in a way that seems removed and objective. Yanai has cited numerous sources of inspiration—from old, modern, and contemporary masters to digital imagery, television, and advertisements—and his simplified representations may serve as a way to condense and organize the multitude of data we receive in reference to any person, place, or thing into concise representations with tight compositions. The more time spent with Yanai’s painting, the more it encourages an investigation into the perceptive space of the canvas, a place where objects, scenery, and nature are conjured, sustained, and gently teased away.

Guy Yanai’s recent selected solo exhibitions took place at KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin (2024), Nassima/Landau Foundation in Tel Aviv (2024), South Korea with Art Intelligence Global (2023), Harper’s Gallery Los Angeles (2023); KÖNIG GALERIE, Berlin (2022); Miles McEnery Gallery, New York (2021); Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles (2021); Galerie Conrads, Dusseldorf (2020); Niels Kantor Gallery, Beverly Hills (2020); and Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa (2015).

His works has been included in exhibitions in numerous institutions such as Museum MORE, Netherlands (2024); Harper’s Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Nassima/Landau Foundation, Tel Aviv (2020); The Velan Center for Contemporary Art, Turin (2013); and The Ashdod Museum of Art, Ashdod (2008).

Recent group exhibitions were exhibited at Larsen Warner, Sweden (2024); Galerie Lelong, Paris (2024); Asia Art Center, Taipei (2024); Museum More, Gorsell Netherlands, 2024, Nassima Landau Foundation, 2024, Yvon Lambert Collection, Avignon (2023), Kunsthal Rotterdam (2022), Alexander Berggruen, New York (2022); Praz-Delavallade, Paris (2021); Asia Art Center, Shanghai (2021); Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo (2021); Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles (2020); amongst others.

Yanai’s works are included in numerous public and private collections throughout the USA, Europe, and Asia, such as Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Xiao Museum, Rhizao, Rema Hort Mann Foundation, New York, Jose & Mary Mugrabi Collection, Israel Discount Bank and M Art Center, Shanghai, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Drake Collection, Museum Voorlinden Collection, Wassenaar Netherlands, Anita Zabludowicz Collection, London, Poort Visser Collection in Netherlands, Creutz & Partners The Art of Asset Management S.A, Luxembourg, Pon Holdings Collection, Amsterdam Netherlands, Arison Family Collection, Miami, NYC, Tel Aviv, Bronfman Family Collection, NYC, Montreal, Tel Aviv among others.

Upcoming solo exhibitions: Isetan the Space, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, and Galerie Lelong, Paris (new two-floor space at Ave Matignon). Group show at Ju Ming Museum, Taipei.