Gilad BenDavid, M.A.
Associate Scholar 4A_Lab
Gilad BenDavid is a PhD candidate in Art History at The Graduate Center CUNY, and a teaching fellow at Brooklyn College. Prior to joining 4A_Lab, he has been awarded fellowships from the Center for Global Early Modern Studies (GEMS), and a GC-Helen Frankenthaler Fellowship. His dissertation, Seeking God in Beardless Beloveds: Obscenity and the Sacred in Persianate Painting and Court Book Culture of the 17th Century, examines the visual representation of beardless boys in Safavid and Mughal manuscripts and albums, focusing on how ambiguity mediates tensions between mysticism, desire, and ethical authority. His research draws on affect theory, theories of vision and touch, and the politics of the obscene in early modern Islamic visual culture. Alongside his academic work, Gilad has contributed curatorial research for contemporary artists and most recently served as a researcher for the German Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, working with artist Yael Bartana.
Gilad Ben David's fellowship at the 4A_Lab is funded by the Minerva Foundation.
- Early Modern Persianate Visual Culture
- Safavid and Mughal arts of the book
- Sexuality and Affect
- Judeo-Islamic visual entanglements