Foto Friday – Miss Kaplan Loves Tel Aviv
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, Holidays, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles, Travel
Natalie Kaplan sees things a little differently. Given that she’s an cartoon series scriptwriter, it’s only right that she has the ability to animate found objects and imbue each one with life, history and — through their titles — humor.
Happy Face
Working under the nom de plume Miss Kaplan, she wanders the streets of Tel Aviv, seeking and finding vignettes she likes. Or loves. “I fell in love,” she writes, “with that wooden wall. and i fell in love with the backyard of that wooden wall.”
I Fell In Love
Tu B’Av, the so-called “Jewish Valentine’s Day”, seems the perfect time for celebrating the love Miss Kaplan sees all around in Tel Aviv. Sometimes it’s right in front of you…
Lovely Mailboxes
Sometimes it needs to be coaxed out gently… She calls this one, Will u stop hiding?
But always look on the positive side… this one is called Half Full
And you can find love even in the most unexpected places. It Touched My Heart, she says.
Read more about Natalie Kaplan at Mint Magazine or visit her Flickr photostream for more Tel Aviv Magic.
Nostalgia Sunday – Jerusalem the Center
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Holidays, Life, Nostalgia Sunday, Religion, Travel
Jerusalem is central to Judaism. And no day is that fact made more evident than Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av, the day on which both the First and Second Temples were destroyed and the Jews exiled. It is a day of fasting and mourning, but also of study, prayer and hope that Jerusalem will one day be truly rebuilt and the Jews returned to their ancient homeland.
To mark the upcoming holy day, here are some pictures of Jerusalem, ancient and modern, courtesy of the excellent Jerusalem Shots website.
© trionfo
© RomKri
© trionfo
© Misha Burlatsky
© G. Eric and Edith Matson
© RomKri
© trionfo
© Олег Велобегов
A new take on an old woman
When I was in college, I was a big fan of conceptual art. I would spend my free time trawling avant-garde museums in search of a performance art video of a man writing on the floor for 25 minutes or a theatrical piece narrated entirely on a Walkman tape player. I even created my own multimedia project, which combined dance, original music and psychedelic video.
I still enjoy the wackier side of art, but my tastes – or perhaps my tolerance level – has become more discerning over the years. But when a show of young Jerusalem video and animation artists took place just around the corner from my home – well, how could I resist?
The program, called Home.Video (yes, that’s spelled correctly), took place at the recently relocated Merkaz Hamagshimim center, a combination absorption, community and activist center for English-speaking new immigrants, sponsored by Hadassah’s Young Judea Zionist youth movement and located in the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem.
The exhibit, which included students from Jerusalem’s prestigious Bezalel art school, the Sam Spiegel film school and Sapir College in Sderot (in the news more for its proximity to Gaza and its rockets).
The projects displayed were pretty eclectic, including a woman contorting herself into a narrow bookshelf and a video that featured both a ballerina and a cute kitty (can you say viral YouTube video?)
Our favorite was by Mizmor Watzman (full disclosure: she’s our kids’ old babysitter and the reason we knew about the show in the first place). Nevertheless, her work was an intricate animated piece playing off the classic “Old Woman in the Shoe” folk tale. In the video, the woman had to contend with an animated chalk drawing that was wreaking havoc on her obsessive quest to keep the shoe squeaky clean.
Mizmor told us that it had taken her a week of sleepless nights to film and another 3 months to edit. You can find it on YouTube here. At just a few minutes in length, it’s well worth a look.
A bissle culture
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Profiles
Keret and Safran Foer overlooking the Old City walls
It’s all thanks to the Jerusalem Cultural Fellowship and the Foundation for Jewish Culture that literary power couple JSF (author of (Everything is Illuminated) and his wife, Nicole Krauss (The History of Love), are spending some time in Israel. Just named two of the New Yorker’s “20 Under 40″, they are some of the artists who are part of Mishkenot’s new program, which is reviving the tradition of inviting artists to reside and create at the center, a sort of artists-in-residence situation. They will also be conducting master classes and participating in events open to the public, continuing the literary discussions from the recent Writer’s Festival in May. Hence, the opportunity for Safran Foer and Keret to continue their May conversation (also continued in New York on several occasions), and for Nicole Krauss to meet with Yoram Kaniuk.
On Midnight East, “an online magazine dedicated to obsessive involvement with the Israeli cultural scene,” Nicole Krauss was quoted as saying that Jerusalem is “a kind of home away from home”, while her husband, JSF, feels that Jerusalem is “the kind of place that inspires creation.”
And Elise Bernhardt, the CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, comments in her blog that writers love it in Jerusalem and at Mishkenot Sha’ananim, because of the particular peace and quiet of the place.
Here’s to some good writing.
Foto Friday – Richard Margolis’ outdoor sculpture hunt
Filed under: Art, Blogging, design, Environment, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Life, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Travel
Richard Margolis hails from Rochester, New York, the “Center of Photography” but this year makes his home in Tel Aviv. In Rochester, birthplace of the Eastman-Kodak company, Margolis generally works in black and white but the sights and sounds of “the City That Never Stops” has had a colorful effect on his current work.
IsraelPublicArt.com is his new project: an online catalogue dedicated to Israel’s creative artists. “I am new here and impressed with the variety and quantity of public art, and with the lack of information about it. This is my attempt to contribute.”
Traveling mostly by foot, on each outing Margolis tries to find more artworks to add. “I’ve delayed uploading the list because each day I find more that ought to be included, but, clearly, it won’t ever be complete.”
The list ranges from Israeli classics such as Nathan Rappaport’s Monument to Mordechai Anilewicz at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai to Ezra Orion’s virtual Inter-Galactic Sculpture, which cannot be seen and is described online here.
Margolis defines “Public” to mean “that no restrictions are imposed or admission charged. Most items are out-of-doors, but could be inside. Usually, they are in prominent locations and easy to find.”
The project is important because it brings attention to those works that, despite being well-displayed in central locations, are sometimes barely noticed. For example, Nordo Gordiano by Gideon Graetz. How many Tel Avivians know its name?
Or this untitled sculpture by Gedalia Sucho (Suchowolsky) at Tel Aviv University, passed by thousands of students every day, yet barely given a glance.
And there are those well-intentioned projects gone awry, such as Ship of the Desert by Nitzan Refaeli, one of a planned eight sound sculptures (only four were created before funding ran dry).
There are whimsical installations, like Cup by Tanya Preminger in suburban Ganei Tikva.
And successful ones, like The Choir by Ofra Zimbalista, a popular sculpture decorating the balcony of venture capital group Evergreen on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard.
As for that tricky word, “Art”, Margolis says “The best art creates a response in viewers. Sometimes it provokes emotion or thought, but I am not judging quality. If the work is finished, installed and I find it, then I include it.”
IsraelPublicArt.com is intended to be a resource “that will call attention to an important cultural resource: The art, monuments, sculpture, and memorials in Israel. Margolis is trying to collect as much information about each item, sculpture, mural, installation, or other pieces of public artwork as can be identified.
There are currently 141 items and 271 photographs now on the site, with more to be added monthly. Margolis invites visitors “to fill in missing, or incorrect, information, including artist’s names, titles, locations, references, or point out typos and glitches.” Comments or suggestions are welcome.
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