Paul Salzberger

August 9, 1945, Timisoara

Scenographer and digital artist

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Paul Salzberger

Born in Timişoara in a Jewish family with ancestors from 1860, Paul Salzberger was noted from childhood for his artistic talent. He was a student of the artist and professor Julius Podlipny and graduated from the Timisoara School of Music and Fine Arts in 1964. After a first failure at the entrance exam, on the second attempt he was accepted at the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, which he graduated with a grade of ten in 1971.

He worked for 49 years as a set designer. At the Turda Theater, he had the chance to collaborate with the director Aureliu Manea, one of the greatest directors of his generation. In 1976 he emigrated to Israel. From 1977 to 2012 he was employed by Israeli Television as a Senior Production Designer and made hundreds of programs in all genres. He has also participated in film productions, dramas, historical series and comedies. He worked closely with Israeli director Ram Loewy. In 1989 he spent a year in Canada, where he made several commercials and a feature film. He has taught scenography at universities in Israel and Canada. From time to time he also collaborated in theaters in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem. He was among the first in the world to use Virtual Reality as a means of implanting people in a virtual space and creating the illusion that they were moving naturally.

After retiring, Salzberger devoted himself to digital art. In its own form: “There are two synapses in my brain. One is related to the long contact with the world of theater and film where I moved among actors, directors, writers, philosophers, critics. The other is the world of arts and visual civilization that invade our lives.” We find scenographic elements in the compositions of disparate elements that, through juxtaposition, acquire a new meaning or, precisely through their incongruity, reveal the absurdity and arbitrariness of existence, in the Dadaist tradition. A dreamy atmosphere with flashes of humor coexists with dramatic images in an explosion of ideas and imagination.

He is married to Mariana, actress in Romania, then a professional photographer. He worked at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and at the Institute of Archeology. They have two married daughters and 6 grandchildren.

He has released several albums with the American publishing house Blurb. On March 26, the opening of the Image Mill exhibition at the Timişoara Art Museum was scheduled, postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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