Nostalgia Sunday – Sali Ariel’s Tel Aviv Bauhaus
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Nostalgia Sunday, Travel
As Tel Aviv’s centennial gets underway and the weather warms up, more and more festive events will be held to celebrate the occasion. One of these happened last night, when the Rozin Center Gallery opened the season with an exhibition of works by painter Sali Ariel.
Originally from the States, Sali was a long-time Jerusalemite who made the move to Tel Aviv over a decade ago. As she got to know her new home, she noticed it was changing before her eyes. “I started seeing the Ramat Gan business district going up and all the big tall buildings on Rothschild Boulevard and while I don’t think that’s bad, I was afraid we would forget how Tel Aviv looked. I also felt inevitably, Tel Aviv had to change but I didn’t know if it was for better or for worse. I wanted to document it for people in the future so they would know how Tel Aviv was in our time.”
Ariel feels she looked at Tel Aviv as an outsider, “because I had just moved from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv seemed to have a bright happy fun look about it. And maybe for that reason I didn’t see the trash and crumbliness, because I was comparing it to the serious and the grayness of Jerusalem, which I also love and think is beautiful, but very different.”
Ariel started out wandering Yarkon Park and trying to sketch the natural surroundings. “But whenever I started to paint trees there were buildings peeking out form behind. And when i started to paint buildings, shockingly, a lot of what i saw was green leafy stuff — they was sort of inseparable, the two.”
Ariel was not a Bauhaus aficionado when she started working on this theme. “I was just doing buildings that looked nice to me. And then i was offered an exhibit at the Bauhaus Center and have had several exhibits since then. It also turns out that many of the building that I like are Bauhaus — but not all. Some of them are the older buildings in what’s called oriental or eclectic style.”
More works can be viewed at Sali Ariel’s website and the current exhibit will be on display at the Rozin Center Gallery in Ramat Aviv until April 22.
Tel Aviv gays to celebrate city’s 100th birthday
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Pop Culture
Tel Aviv’s Centennial celebrations which are kicking off this spring won’t be ignoring the city’s substantial gay community. According to Ynet, a tiny $23,700 amount of the city’s festivities budget of $10.4 million will be allocated for specific gay pride activities.
However, that amount, combined with the annual $71,400 budget for the city’s annual gay pride parade will amount to enough of a budget for Tel Aviv’s gays and equal rights supporters to celebrate in style.
A number of events have been discussed, and among the ideas are an exhibition of artist Rafi Peretz’s work. The acclaimed Tel Aviv artist is a graduate of the Beersheva school of Visual Arts where he studied from 1988 through 1992.
Other events being discussed include holding a gay book fair at the Cinematheque’s annual gay film festival. As usual, the annual parade will take place in June, this year on June 12 with a special picnic in the park. Unlike the gay pride parade in Jerusalem which is perennially fraught with controversy, threats of violence and cancellations, the Tel Aviv event is always an easy going, colorful affair.
Tel Aviv celebrates 100th birthday
Filed under: History and Culture, Movies, Music, Pop Culture
When the folks of Tel Aviv decides to celebrate, they do it in style. The official Tel Aviv-Jaffa Centenial celebrations are being launched this weekend (I’m not sure exactly what happened in 1909 – maybe the first parking ticket issued?).
Touted as the first festival of its kind, the Contempo Fest is going to feature hundreds of artists from Israel and Europe over a three-week period, focusing on video art, DJs, concerts, operas, and a diverse display of contemporary musical styles: classical, electronic, club music, and rock.
First up is SOUNDS & VISIONS: Artists’ Films and Videos from Europe The Last Decade, which is a multi-media exhibition of Europe’s foremost video artists at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Among the dozen outre artists displaying their projects include Italy’s bad boy Francesco Vezzoli (An Embroidered Trilogy 1997-99), Cyprien Gaillard (France), Christian Jankowski (Germany), Jesper Just (Denmark), Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor (Romania).
Over the next three weeks, venues like the Caliph Club, Einav Auditorium, Ha’eiva in Yafo, Levontin 7 Club, Tmuna Theater and the Felicja Blumental Music Center, will also be featuring exhibitions and performances.
And even though they were not to happy with us over Operation Cast Lead, those EU member states are suckers for art, so participating countries include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Among the homegrown talent will be:
* Meitar in a program bringing compositions by Israeli poets and composers on the theme of Tel Aviv. The New Vocal Ensemble will perform at the Einav Center with a cabaret tribute to Tel Aviv.
* Two contemporary operas will premier at the Festival: “ME,” by composer Kiki Keren Hoss at “The Ark,” based on texts by Lea Goldberg, performed by Nova Music Group and directed by Danny Erlich. “An Index of Metals,” a video-art opera by composer Fausto Romitelli (1963-2004) and Paolo Pachini, performed by the 21st Century Ensemble, will appear at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
* A tribute concert to one of the major composers of the 20th century Luciano Berio, marking six years since his death. The Meitar ensemble with perform the premier of British-Israeli composer Yerach Fishman’s, Dan Yuhas and Ari ben Shabtai.
* Ensemble Nikel will perform pieces of Chaya Chernobin, Steven Takasogi and Helmut Ohring. Nizar Raduan’s Haifa Ensemble and the Tel Aviv Art Ensemble will perform, “The First Time,” by Alon Olearchik at the Einav Auditorium.
Numerous overseas artists and groups, many of whom will perform in collaboration with Israeli groups, will be participating as well: A concert by Musica Nova on contemporary French music at Tmuna, including pieces by renowned contemporary composer and Festival guest artist Betsy Jolas. Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, one of the most important ensembles in its area, returns for another successful visit, with a program of love songs. From Germany, the Mosaic Ensemble, winners of the Siemans award, with Engel, will perform pieces by Palestinian composer Samir Ouda Tamimi, including “Shatilla” and “Our Brothers II” as well as pieces by new German composers. The Mosaic and Nikel ensembles will perform together in a musical marathon, featuring works by German composer and Festival guest Helmut Ohring, one of music’s most renowned and intriguing figures.
Electronic Music and Interdisciplinary events dealing with the meeting point of art, music and the culture of the world of clubs will take place within the framework of C.SIDE, at the Caliph Club, following four years in Jerusalem and Berlin. Curators: Roni Shen-Dar (Israel) and Tiel Roman (Germany).
C.Side will host over 30 leading acts from around the world and Israel on a number of stages.
International artists include: Efterklang (Denmark), Kameel John Farrah (Canada), Mina and the Complainer Asi (Poland), Kucharczyk brother and sister Mit and Ganopol (France), dOP (France), Carreras Jacopo (Italy/Germany), Glitterbug (Germany).
So, if it’s culture you’re looking for, with a taste of European class, then Tel Aviv is the place to be this month. Happy Birthday!
Foto Friday – Tel Aviv Port
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, History and Culture, Travel
Conde Nast’s Concierge.com just named Tel Aviv tops on its “It List 2009” and about time too. Each year, Concierge “comb[s] the globe looking for the emerging places that will be on everybody’s lips two years from now”. So how great is it to already be in a place “that will make you feel all right about the world again”. Great indeed.
Photographer Hanoch Grizitzky has captured the Tel Aviv’s enchantment and energy in a series of images of the old port and its new boardwalk in the rain. The image above is of the walkway and, looming in the background, the Reading Power Plant — a historic Modernist building whose tower was once accurately described by an old boyfriend as “the phallus of Tel Aviv”. Reading is now garishly draped in colored lights because we are the party city.
Winter isn’t the most fashionable time to travel, but it has its advantages: the city air feels fresh, there aren’t a lot of tourists, and people are calmer, (relatively speaking – this is Israel, of course), in the absence of the summer swelter. The disadvantages are that it sometimes rains and gets dark very early, but these elements have their charms as well.
Grizitzky freelances for leading Israeli news publications such as Yediot Aharonot, Globes, women’s mag La-Isha, entertainment rag Pnai Plus and others, photographing objects of beauty – be they desert flowers or spokesmodels. “My starting point is love of photography and beautiful things come from there,” he says. “Like the hummus commercial says, ‘Do it out of love or don’t do it at all.’”
These small format images don’t begin to do justice to Grizitzky’s works, particularly this panoramic view. For a better look, visit his website and picture gallery.
Foto Friday – White Nights with Tiranit Barzilay Cohen
Filed under: Art, Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture
Last night was the first in Tel Aviv’s summer series of “White Night” events – all night happenings featuring outdoor concerts on Rothschild Boulevard and on the beach, discounts at restaurants and cafes, performances, and more.
There was also an opening, at the Sommer Contemporary Art gallery of photographer Tiranit Barzilay Cohen’s latest work – her first show in a decade. Barzilay photographs her subjects using minimal direction and set against a white studio background, to explore existential themes: life, death and the human condition.
The full exhibit may be viewed online at the gallery website.
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