FLESH

In this passionate, sensual and sometimes macabre tale, and in bold and vivid prose, Eyal Dotan limns the tension between art and money and questions assumptions about aesthetic autonomy and authenticity.

On the eve of the financial collapse of 2008, a smug and driven young investment manager finds himself unexpectedly drawn into the art world. A callous and manipulative loner who lost his parents in a freak accident, Adam Luria is mostly interested in himself. But then, at a pro-Palestinian demonstration, he meets an alluring and wildly iconoclastic older woman, an American performance artist. As their unlikely but inevitable affair flourishes, he leaves his job and moves with her to New York, where they set to work on a daring idea to present death as art by displaying a decaying corpse in a glass coffin. As they challenge the art establishment of curators, gallery owners and patrons, their own relationship starts to unravel. Dr. Eyal Dotan is an Israeli author, journalist and academic lecturer. Dotan has published literary reviews in Ha'aretz and also has written for the Tel Aviv local newspaper Ha'Ir. Dotan has taught at several academic institutions and since 1996 he has been teaching classes and seminars at Tel Aviv University on comparative literature and contemporary thought. His debut novel FLESH appeared in 2012.