Shmuel Ackerman, (Shmuel Akkerman), Israeli, born 1951, Soviet Union, active in Israel and France. Shmuel Ackerman was born in Ukraine to a religious family. In 1973, he immigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem. From his earliest work, he created abstract symbolist art influenced by folkloristic motifs and modern Western art. In 1976, he founded the Leviathan group with Avraham Ofek and Mikhail Grobman, which sought to create a "national" style of art through the synthesis of symbolism, metaphysics and Judaism. The group combined conceptual art and "land art" with Jewish symbolism. Of the three of them Avraham Ofek had the deepest interest in sculpture and its relationship to religious Kabbalah symbolism and images. In one series of his works Ofek used mirrors to project Hebrew letters, words with religious or kabbalistic significance, and other images onto soil or man-made structures. In his work "Letters of Light" (1979), for example, the letters were projected onto people and fabrics and the soil of the Judean Desert. In another work Ofek screened the words "America", "Africa", and "Green card" on the walls of the Tel Hai courtyard during a symposium on sculpture Part of the generation of emigre Russian artists, many Jewish, that included Yuri Kuper, Komar and Melamid, Eduard Steinberg, Erik Bulatov, Viktor Pivovarov, Vladimir Yankilevsky, Ilya Kabakov and Grisha Bruskin. Ackerman was an active member of the group until 1981. In 1984, he moved to Paris, France. Education 1965-1970 Institute for Monumental Art, Ukraine.