A painter and educator, Lavi is born in Tel Aviv in 1937, receiving all of his formal art training in Israel at the Art Teacher’s College in Tel Aviv, where he later becomes a professor. Lavi leads many artistic movements in Israel throughout his career, the most important of which being the “Want of Matter” art movement, based on secular, non-political values associated with the mostly secular city of Tel Aviv. Although Lavi dies in 2007, his art is chosen to represent Israel in the prestigious Venice Biennale in 2009.