Foto Friday – Jerusalem Lights Up
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, Picture of the Week, Travel
The Light in Jerusalem 2010 festival opened Wednesday night. This unique art event, which runs from June 9-16th, features 70 light sculptures, outdoor performances, a lighting fixtures design fair, and illuminated parade – all created especially for Jerusalem’s Old City, by artists from Israel and abroad.
The event centers around five different paths that lead visitors from exhibit to exhibit. Some of the highlights:
What Do Trees Do at Night? created by animation and video artist Joseph Meir Jimmy, explores the life and memories of an huge, ancient tree standing beside the Old City wall.
Designer Gil Teichman will light up the Kidron Valley with Fans of Light. Teichman owns Israel’s leading lighting company, designing and implementing lighting for private and business oriented events and large-scale technological projects.
Light Sculptures Along Hativot Etzioni Street is a humorous take of the role of art in public spaces by multidisciplinary artist Bernardo Scolnik.
A Mound Comes to Life is a projection and lighting installation in the City of David created by TR Lighting Design. The piece can be viewed –- in three parts — on YouTube.
French company Blachere will present the city of Jerusalem with Solar Tree, a unique tree statue composed of thousands of LED lights that work on solar energy. The tree, which illuminates the courtyard of the German Church, will remain there as a gift to the city.
The History of Light, a sound and light performance incorporating acrobatics, dance, video, lighting effects and pyrotechnics, will be presented throughout the festival. Tickets can be purchased from Bimot ; Tel: 02-6237000.
This is the second year for this international light festival. Last year’s festival had over 200,000 visitors – it was pretty crowded but definitely worthwhile. Take a look:
Foto Friday – Fresh Paint
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture, Travel
The third Fresh Paint contemporary Israeli art fair opens next week, on May 5–8, 2010, at the newly renovated Warehouse 1 in the Old Jaffa Port. Since its inauguration two years ago, Fresh Paint has become Israel’s largest and most influential art event, bringing together all of the most significant players in the Israeli art world and supported by the country’s leading art institutions. It’s kind of a crazy art madhouse with tens of thousands of visitors from Israel and elsewhere.
As in previous years, Fresh Paint’s organizers asked each participating artist to create a post-card sized artwork for a project entitled The Secret Postcard, modeled after the Royal College of Art’s successful sale in London. Of course, Fresh Paint’s deal with aspects of Israeli reality:
Politics…
Leisure time…
History…
Progress…
And the existential, solid as a floor tile, fleeting as a steaming hot cup of tea.
The postcards are put on display and sold on a first-come, first-served basis at the uniform price of NIS 180. But there’s catch: the works are exhibited anonymously. Only afterwards do the buyers find out whether their purchase was created by a young up-and-comer or an already well-known artist. This year’s selection of 1,400 postcards includes works by over 700 artists, including well known names like Menashe Kadishman, Yair Garbuz, David Tartakover, Johanan Herson and Yehudit Sasportas. All proceeds from the project fund scholarships for youth from underprivileged backgrounds who excel in the arts, enabling them to study at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s Education Center program. All the postcards can also be viewed online.
Fresh paint 3 will include a silent auction of a work by the well-known Israeli artist Lea Nikel. All proceedings from the sale will go to finance art workshops for children with cancer hospitalized at the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer.
All works by Fresh Paint 3’s independent artists are available for purchase at the fair, with revenue for these works passed directly to the artists on a commission-free basis.
This is one event definitely worth visiting. For better or for worse, it provides insight into the art scene and, for a fair price, you can support our local artists. Plus, it’s fun! And once you’re done with Fresh Paint, dinner at Doctor Shakshouka will make for a perfect night.
Foto Friday – A Return to Poland with Yael Bartana
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Pop Culture
Artist Yael Bartana investigates Israeli society and politics through photography, film, video, sound work and installations. Born in Afula and now working in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv, she has had numerous solo exhibitions in Israel and abroad, most recently at the Sommer Contemporary Art gallery in Tel Aviv.
Bartana is interested in the events that have shaped Israeli and Jewish history and identity in the 20th century, such as propaganda films, archival footage, military symbols, uniforms and ceremonies and anthems.
The current exhibition is the Israeli premiere of a video installation in which 2 films out of a yet-incomplete trilogy are presented: Nightmares (2007) and Wall & Tower (2009). In Nightmares, a young activist speaks to an empty stadium and encourages 3 million Jews to return to Poland.
Fictional though it may be, the idea of such encouragement (the word “Jew” in the mouths of Poles is presented here as positive, not negative) and the enthusiastic pioneering response (so evocative of youth movements, the early kibbutz and other images that nourished our idealism over the past century) is disturbing. Which it is supposed to be. Particularly given the exhibit’s timing, with Holocaust Remembrance Day coming up on Sunday and Israel Independence Day the week after.
“Wall and Tower” continues the hypothetical notion of a Jewish return to Poland. In this film, the Jews return to build the first kibbutz in Europe using the overnight jerry-built “wall and tower” tactic employed by pre-State Jewish pioneers under the British Mandate. The location of this fantasy settlement is also significant: it was filmed in Warsaw on the site where the Museum of the History of Polish Jews will stand.
According to the Polish Cultural Institute, “The artist fantasizes about a vigorous new movement… the Movement for Jewish Rebirth in Poland. Its distinct logo, a white eagle on a Star of David…
“Bartana recalls the Zionist dream, invoking heroic images… [and] moves within an ambiguous area marked by the specters of nationalism and military determination, touching upon the memory of anti-Semitism and extermination which accompanied the history of settlement.”
All of which, it should be added, led to the eventual founding of the State of Israel as a national Jewish homeland following the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews — including 3 million Jews of Polish extraction — were murdered.
Yael Bartana’s show runs through May 15 at Sommer Contemporary Art, 13 Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv. More works can be viewed at the gallery website and the artist’s website.
Foto Friday – Design Museum Holon
Filed under: Art, design, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Movies, Pop Culture
Holon , the city on the dunes, has traditionally been a sleepy satellite and antithesis of Tel Aviv. So much so, in fact, that Holon’s first mayor, Dr. Haim Kugel, envisioned it as a place where the working man would drink a cup of tea on his balcony before retiring to bed at 9:30. No discos, night clubs or decadent “City That Never Stops” frippery for Kugel’s Holon.
Oh well, Haim, times change. Over the years, Holon has positioned itself as Israel’s center for niche museums, providing a home not only to the Egged Bus Museum and Israel Children’s Museum but also to the Mediatheque, a cultural centre that includes the National Cartoon Museum, repertory theater, cinematheque, a unique materials library and public library and the Israel Design Center.
And next week, on January 31st 2010, the Design Center inaugurates its new award-winning building by Ron Arad Architects, thus thwarting Kugel’s dream forever.
Design Museum Holon does fulfill the dream of its founders, Holon’s Mayor, Motti Sasson and Managing Director, Hana Hertsman who term it “the pinnacle of a sixteen-year urban regeneration programme, a process which is transforming the city of Holon, central Israel, into a global epicenter for culture and education.” A series of videos about their vision is available here.
That vision is more than matched by the building, a sexy ribbon of weathered steel, graduated in tone, that winds its way around a large central plaze, flanked by the Mediatheque.
The founders wanted Arad to create an iconic building that would provide visitors with an immersive design environment, and the Design Museum is Arad’s first architectural project of this scale. As he explains it, “Holon is a city which is re-inventing itself culturally, with ambitious plans that are investing a lot into culture. The concept of this museum in the Middle Eastern sun is just one instance.”
“Every project is unique; each one invites a different response. When we started working on Design Museum Holon, it was like a white canvas, things developed and a direction was formed. We created a hierarchy of outdoor spaces so you walk in under the building into a semi-covered yard, where you have a choice to take the air-conditioned route or one exposed to the elements. The building envelope is not just a pretty space; it’s also a structure.”
An interview with Arad about the museum can be found here:
The Design Museum’s annual program will showcase site-specific exhibitions by invited international curators as well as travelling exhibitions. A historical collection of Israeli design is also being created and the museum’s permanent collection will be unveiled in five to seven years. The first exhibition opens on March 4th 2010. More details on www.dmh.org.il. Photos courtesy of Design Museum Holon’s Facebook page – become a fan today!
Foto Friday – Jacob Ackerman’s Birds of Prey
Filed under: Art, Environment, Foto Friday, General, Travel
Whether in Israel or abroad, Jacob “Yaki” Ackerman spends days and nights in the heart of nature, lying in wait to capture its magic and power.
Patient and alert, he spends long hours for that perfect split second in which to freeze the action of a body in motion. Perhaps that is why he relates so strongly to birds of prey.
Ackerman’s work will be part of a group art show about Israel’s predatory birds opening next week at the Man and the Living World Museum in Ramat Gan.
This unique museum, situated within the Ramat Gan National Park, features a variety of natural history exhibits as well as a center for educational activity and cultural events.
Ackerman’s extensive portfolio includes images from around the world but his passion is nature photography, and birds in particular. He’s participated in numerous wildlife photography exhibitions and his website contains some magnificent interactive photo albums that should not be missed. Enjoy.
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