January Art Guide - Jerusalem

Starting the new year with some really interesting, eclectic and educational new exhibitions in Jerusalem! Don’t miss these three shows which span a wide variety of mediums, artists and ideas. Experience the Jerusalem art scene on an Oh So Arty tour.

I.

Exhibition: Placeless: Following Jacqueline Kahanoff

Artist: Group Show

Venue: Musrara New Gallery, HaAyin Het St. 9

Dates: Until February 24th

Part of Musrara’s Photopoetics event which spans three exhibitions connecting visual arts with prolific Israeli literary works, Placeless: Following Jacqueline Kahanoff, follows the writing and thought of Jacqueline Kahanoff, focusing on the search for identity in the Mediterranean expanse, while looking at notions of Eastern and Western, antagonism versus fluidity and hybridity, belonging and not belonging. A writer and essayist, Kahanoff sought to define multiculturalism as a world view and a way of living, long before the postmodern discourse. Alongside Kahanoff’s texts, the artists who were invited to participate in the exhibition explore, each in his or her own way, the possibility of presenting a personal voice and the ability to capture memory and cultural identity.

Image: Dafna Shalom, “Press Plants (Book of Exodus), photograph, 2018.

II.

Exhibition: Victory Over The Sun: Russian Avant Garde and Beyond

Artist: Group Show

Venue: Israel Museum, Ruppin Blvd. 12

Dates: Until July 2019.

The first comprehensive exhibition on the subject in Israel, Victory Over The Sun will explore avant-garde trends in Russian art during the 20th century. Beginning with Kazimir Malevich’s radical revolution in art prior to the year 1920, the exhibition emphasizes his Suprematist period and its significant influence on generations of prominent artists up to the present day. This is followed by an exploration of Nonconformist Art that emerged after Stalin's death, and the exhibition’s epilogue addresses the legacy of each of these movements in the works of contemporary artists, highlighting the continuity of the avant-garde tradition.

Image: Pavel Pepperstein, El Lizzitzky’s Autostrada in the Alps in 2401, watercolor on paper, 2017.

III.

Exhibition: Carry That Weight

Artist: Group Show

Venue: Jerusalem Artists’ House

Dates: Until March 9th.

The exhibition Carry that Weight explores the image of a youth carrying an animal on his shoulders, regarding the image as something which passes from hand to hand, like a commodity or a currency that crosses worlds, cultures, and periods, and changes meanings and contents. The works of the 21 participating Israeli artists extend from the 1950s to the present and introduce a lively dialogue with the image, bifurcating into diverse narratives. The works range from the shepherd figure to father-son relations, through allusions to the Sacrifice of Isaac portraying death and bereavement, as well as different representations of masculinity -- other works allude to feminine aspects, as well as to different types of burdens and the implications of the carried load on the body.

Image: Galia Pasternak, Plenty, Love, Rachel, oil on canvas, pastels and ink on paper, 2013

Learn more about Oh So Arty in Jerusalem here or book a tour here!

October Art Guide - Jerusalem

October brings with it many new exhibitions and the last chance to see some great ones that are already on view in Jerusalem! Check out our Jerusalem insider, Jenna Romano's recommendations of what to see right now.

I.

Exhibition: Lifetime

Artist: Christian Boltanski

Venue: The Israel Museum

Dates: Until November 3rd

Israel Museum Lifetime  | Lifetime draws on Christian Boltanski’s oeuvre spanning thirty years, but the artist regards this exhibition as one artwork, a complete story composed of successive chapters: his early altar memorials to unknown people; large-scale installations addressing the subject of fate; and recent video works filmed in primal landscapes and charged with the power of myth. The journey through the exhibition proposes an itinerary that begins in darkness but leads to light, solace, and perhaps even the possibility of a new beginning.

II.

Exhibition: The Jerusalem Show IX

Artists: Various Artists

Venue: The Al’Mamal Foundation for Contemporary Art

Dates: Until October 31

The Jerusalem is an initiative of The Al’Mamal Foundation for Contemporary Art, organized in the old city, the event encompasses art exhibitions, performances, workshops, talks and film screenings. This year’s theme, Jerusalem Actual and Possible prompts curators and artists to use research in order to explore the history and present of Palestinian art in Jerusalem - mining collections, archives and institutions accessible from the city that will questions Jerusalem’s where, how and when.

III.

Exhibition: Manofim Contemporary Art Festival

Artist: Various Artists

Venue: Various Venues

Dates: October 23-27

For the tenth year, the Manofim festival brings together all of Jerusalem’s art world for one night. Notable events for this week include: a night of exhibition openings around the city (Manofim hires shuttles to take visitors through all neighborhoods of Jerusalem!), artist appointments where visitors spend 45 minutes one-on-one with local artists inside their studios (registration required), and a full day art conference (registration required). The festival’s main exhibition is titled Properties, and will be held in several buildings throughout the Talbiyeh neighborhood of Jerusalem - both private home and public buildings - where the exhibitions will introduce questions about the reexamination of each multi-faceted space whose residents may have come to see as mundane and banal.

For more information on Oh So Arty in Jerusalem please click here.

February Art Guide - Jerusalem

Recommendations of what to see in the Jerusalem art scene this month by our local guide, Jenna Romano. Discover even more on a private tour.

I.

Exhibition: Form the Light, And Create Darkness
Artist: Israel Rabinovitz
Venue: Jerusalem Artists’ House
Dates: February 3 - April 7 2018

I have not yet been, but for anyone who is living in or visiting Israel, I think it’s important to learn about and challenge the ethos of Israeli Zionist culture. Using raw materials - ‘souvenirs’ made from olive wood, ancient loca fragments, rusty relics, etc. - Rabinovitz introduces questions about locale and localism, about the symbolic meanings of real and fabricated archaeology and about the validity of Israeli rituals in social and cultural contexts.  

IMAGE Israel Rabinovitz, "No Title", 2013, mixed media. 

II.

Exhibition: Feminine Aggressiveness: A Work in Progress
Artist: Lecture by Shir Aloni Arari
Venue: Art Cube Artists Studios
Date: February 12,  2018. 

There is what seems to be a perennial dissonance between the words ‘female’ and ‘empowered’. Often looked upon as unnatural, females who exhibit external aggressiveness are perceived as extreme and ‘masculine’ - but there is a trending reformulation of the complex representations of female empowerment. This lecture will look at examples from pop culture and contemporary art, touching of questions of gender power relations, maternal ambivalence, education and initiation, aggressive and creative impulses.

 IMAGE: South, Sharon Polianke, etching on metal plate.

III.

Exhibition: On The Corner of HaNeviim and Shivtei Israel
Artist: Sharon Polianke
Venue: Jerusalem Print Workshop
Dates: On view until February 28, 2018.

This exhibition is really an ode to the art of printmaking. Sharon Polianke, a masterful printmaker currently living in Tel Aviv, turns the print workshop into a map and archaeological site that pays tribute to the location of the gallery itself. Using a variety of printing techniques, Polianke exhibits work that evoke themes of history and memory, but also allude the the techniques themselves and the artists own love for the medium - ultimately linking the collective and historical with the mental and the personal. 

IMAGE Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Theatrical release poster, by Reynold Brown

Take an art tour in Jerusalem to discover more!
 

Jerusalem Art Guide - January

With the holidays, the new year and the cold weather - it’s easy to sway from discovering new galleries and art in Jerusalem. Here is a list of exhibition that are absolutely worth venturing out for - these exhibitions will warm your soul and mind this January!

I.

Exhibition title: Pravda Pravda
Artists: Zoya Cherkassky
Venue: The Israel Museum
Dates: Opens January 10 2018

Pravda is the first solo exhibition of highly acclaimed Israeli artist, Zoya Cherkassky. The exhibition show will focus on her paintings from recent years that address personal experiences and the collective trials of the Russian immigrant influx to Israel in the early 1990s. In these works that are at times, provocative and defiant, Cherkassky paints a portrait of this cultural encounter that places an unsettling mirror before Israeli society.  

Rabbi's Deliquium, 2016, Oil on linen, Private collection, Israel

II.

Exhibition: Contemporary Arabesque
Artists: Various Artists
Venue: Museum of Islamic Art
Dates: Until April 7th, 2018

Contemporary Arabesque examines how local Palestinian and Israeli artists adopt various motifs associated with the Muslim decorative elements known as arabesque and incorporate them into their work while imbuing their creations with biographical, political and gender related content. The works in the exhibition reflect different approaches to the aesthetic of arabesque: most Israeli artists relate to its form, while Palestinian artists identify it with certain aspects of conservative Islamic culture.

Installation view by Rimma Arslanov

III.

Exhibition: Apparitions
Artist: Gustavo Sagorsky
Venue: Bezalel Academy Photography Department

Solo exhibition by Gustavo Sagorsky. Sagorsky, a fascinating Jerusalem based photographer has an affinity for obsolete objects, their lack of functionality allows him to observe things in a more comprehensive way. This exhibition, Apparitions displays a series of photographs which the artist took over the span of a few years in Jerusalem—displaying mundane objects in a unique light which the artist captured intuitively. For Sagorsky, "Objects are just what they are, their price or value of their components are irrelevant. I like to watch what happens when I get into contact with them and to see the outcome of the act of taking a picture".

Scar, 19,5 cm x 29 cm

Take a tour with Jenna in Jerusalem to discover more!

Jerusalem Art Guide - December

I.

Exhibition: The Art of Utopia
Artists: Various Artists
Venue: Van Leer Institute Jerusalem
Dates: Until March 8th 2018

The Art of Utopia is an international graphic art exhibition reflecting on the idea of the perfect world. This idea has existed for millennia, but the dawn of modernity and the belief that man can create such perfection on his own has given birth to myriad utopian ideas in occidental thought. The Art of Utopia displays posters by 35 renowned artists from around the globe, presenting their take on the possibilities and dangers of the concept of the perfect world. 

II.

Exhibition: Partial Portrait: Fragmented Identities
Artists: Various Artists
Venue: Jerusalem Artists’ House
Dates: On view until January 27th 2018

The exhibition “Partial Portrait” explores the constant tension between the recognition that identities are a jigsaw puzzle of overlapping, clashing, connecting, and retreating parts, and our conviction that we know others. The works by Michal Heiman, Aram Gershuni, Yaron Lapid, and Assaf Shaham resonate the fragmentation of identity as an extensive, broad phenomenon. 

Yaron Lapid, Patterns (03), 2015, photographic composite from found image

III.

Exhibition: Jerusalem in Detail
Artist/s: Aviad Bar-Ness and Asaf Evron
Venue: Israel Museum
Dates: Until January 27th 2018

The exhibition was inspired by David Kroyanker's research, foremost chronicler of Jerusalem architecture, this exhibition focuses on often overlooked but highly symbolic design motifs hidden in the Jerusalem’s streets and buildings. It enables visitors to hone their observational skills and discover the functional and decorative details that say so much about the many nations, cultures, and ways of life that left their mark over the centuries. The display spotlights Jerusalem’s cosmopolitan visual richness and whets the appetite for further exploration of the city.

Take a tour with Jenna in Jerusalem to discover more!