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"Age of Innocence: Portraying Children in the European Tradition" Age of Innocence: Portraying Children in the European Tradition” explores depictions of childhood in some 40 works of art, dating from the 15th century through the present day. The works, which are primarily drawn from the Israel Museum’s own collection, reflect the evolving roles of children in European culture and the sociological changes in attitude toward children over the last five centuries.
* a painting from the School of Hieronymous Bosch, The Conjuror, after 1480, which shows the child as one of the crowd watching the conjuror * Lewis Carroll, Xie Standing, 1875, a typical example of the 19th century romanticized image of the child as a symbol of innocence * Max Liebermann’s Kindergarden (1879), painted in his realist style sheds a harsh light on the everyday life of children of the lower classes in a kindergarden Exhibition Organization: " Age of Innocence" is curated by Shlomit Steinberg, the Hans Dichand Curator of European Art at the Israel Museum, and Sivan Eran from the Department of Prints and Drawings
Early Works of Reuven Rubin Presented at the Israel Museum for First-Time Display Jerusalem, November 8, 2006 - The Israel Museum presents Prophets and Visionaries: Reuven Rubin's Early Years: 1914-23, an exhibition that offers the public an unprecedented opportunity to study works from the hitherto largely unexplored early years of Israel's artistic icon Reuven Rubin (1893-1974). The exhibition illuminates the early period of Rubin's work, from 1914 when he lived and worked in Romania through his very first works in Palestine in 1923. On view from November 16, 2006, through June 30, 2007, Prophets and Visionaries features some 50 works by Rubin, from collections in Israel and abroad and from the collection of the Israel Museum, highlighting a number of works, that are on display for the first time. "Although much is known about the art that Rubin created in the Land of Israel after his immigration in 1923, very little attention has been paid to the period of some nine years, beginning in 1914, during which he worked primarily in his native country of Romania,"states James Snyder, Director of the Israel Museum. "This exhibition showcases Rubin's early and previously unknown efforts and proves them to be powerful works in their own right, presenting the young Rubin as a complex modern artist who treated his subjects with originality and audacity. One of the first Israeli artists to achieve international recognition, Romanian-born Reuven Rubin studied briefly at the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem in 1912-13, before moving to Paris and then to Romania, where he lived between 1916 and 1921. After a time in New York, Rubin immigrated permanently to Israel in 1923, where he continued his artistic career. In 1973 he was recognized with Israel's most prestigious national award, the Israel Prize, for his achievements in the fine arts.
Concurrent with the Israel Museum's presentation Prophets and Visionaries, the Tel Aviv Museum presents Dream Land: Reuven Rubin and the Encounter with the Land of Israel in his Paintings of the 1920s and 1930s. A special reduced entrance fee applies to visits to both exhibitions.
"NEWS: Recent Acquisitions in Contemporary Art" The Israel Museum presents NEWS: Recent Acquisitions in Contemporary Art, the debut presentation of over forty acquisitions selected during the past five years, including sculpture, video works, installations, and photography. Many of the works on view relate to aspects and narratives of urban life from China, Poland, Turkey, the United States, and other world venues whose locations remain unknown. Among the featured artists are well-known figures, such as Sigalit Landau, Aernout Mik, Su-Mei Tse, Micha Ullman, Paloma Varga Weiss, together with emerging talents, such as Johanna Billing, Michael Borremans, Cao Fei, and others.
"This exhibition reflects a multiplicity of novel approaches, including installation and other new media, by some forty contemporary artists from within Israel and from other countries, whose work the Museum collects with equal commitment,” states James Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. "This kind of global embrace resonates with the Museum's collecting mission, which, in its short forty-year history, has amassed holding unique in their range, from prehistoric archaeology, through Jewish ceremonial art, to the visual arts of Western and non-Western cultures, and from earliest recorded history to works created in our own times." Highlights from the exhibition include the video installation Organic Escalator (2000), by Dutch artist Aernout Mik, screened in a tunnel-like space that slowly shifts back and forth, linking and confusing the viewer's physical experience of the fictitional space of the real space of the viewer's physical experience. Turkish artist Servet Kocyigit's c-print, The Bric-a-Brac seller, (2005) juxtaposes the backdrop of a shantytown with the aura that emanates from a chandelier that the man offers on sale. Israeli artist Erez Israeli's installation of an artificial meadow sprinkled with poppies made from tiny glass pearls, Fields of Flowers (2005), alludes to the short life cycle of the poppy and to the fragility of glass and conveys the message that this beauty, too, is fleeting. The limewood bust by German artist Paloma Varga Weisz, Head Portrait (2005), recalls well-recognized attributes of Late Gothic art, but replaces its anticipated subject of a pious noblewoman with a portrait of the artist herself.
“Building a collection that stays at the cutting edge of contemporary art, and doing so in a way that integrates the best of Israeli’s contemporary creativity with developments worldwide, is one of the major Museum’s collecting challenges. From our unique perspective between the eastern and western worlds. This is an especially fascinating journey of discovery,” says Suzanne Landau, Chief Curator of the Arts at the Israel Museum and curator of the exhibition. The exhibition is made possible by The Jack N. and Lilyan Mandel Fund, The Joseph C. And Florence Mandel Fund, The Morton L. and Barbara Mandel Fund, and the donors to the Museum’s 2006 Exhibition Fund.
Talking Heads:Portraits and Texts from the Vera and Arturo Schwarz Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art
Among the works in the exhibition are Man Ray's Surrealist Chessboard, comprising images of his friends and central figures from the Surrealist movement; Francis Picabia's books of poetry with satirical diagram-like sketches; collage-novels by Max Ernst, presenting sexually charged and frightening images; and albums of prints by Andre Masson, made in his automatic-erotic style. "The collaborative effort in the making of the portraits and books on view in Talking Heads illustrates the intellectual ferment of Surrealism and the spiritual bonds that existed among the members of the movement," says exhibition curator Tamar Manor-Friedman. “In addition to highlighting the book as a work of art, the exhibition reveals the pioneering and revolutionary spirit of these writings and their authors." Assembled by scholar and collector Arturo Schwarz over half a century, the library which comprises the core of the collection includes some 1,000 items, among them rare and unique documents, manifestos, periodicals, manuscripts, and artists’ books-the latter featuring original prints. Its size and singularity mark it as a cultural asset of international standing. Schwarz's gifts to the Israel Museum began in 1972, with the donation of a complete set of Marcel Duchamp’s Readymades. The gift of his unique library was made in 1991 and was followed by further important donations in 1998 and 2003, enriching the Museum as one of the world’s centers for the study and display of the art of these movements. "This exhibition offers yet another opportunity for the Israel Museum to showcase the richness of its resources in these seminal fields. We remain deeply grateful to Arturo Schwarz for making Jerusalem so central a venue for the preservation and appreciation of the Dada and Surrealist movements and for giving such depth to the Museum's extensive holdings in this period in 20 th century art," says James Snyder.
Color in the Park
This coming Thursday art teachers and artists from the Youth Wing will work together with high school students to put up an environmental sculpture made of scrap metal entitled Art Forest. This permanent work of art will remain on the site for the enjoyment of the people of Kiryat Shemonah and visitors from other parts of the country. This project expresses the Israel Museum's social and cultural commitment to the regions touched by the war. We hope that it will inspire further projects in the future.
Model of Jerusalem from the Late Second Temple Era Relocated to the Israel Museum
“Our new information and study center, the newly relocated model of Jerusalem from the Second Temple Era, and the Shrine of the Book together offer visitors the unique opportunity for a comprehensive and contextual overview of life in Jerusalem and the Land of Israel during the 1 st century,” stated James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. “These latest additions amplify the power of the Shrine of the Book as a central feature of the Museum’s landscape and reinforce the goal of our recently announced campus renewal plan, to transform the Museum into a cohesive experience of art, archaeology, architecture, and landscape.” The model and study center, together with the Shrine of the Book, now offer visitors an enriching view of Jerusalem during the seminal period of the concurrent development of formative Judaism and Christianity. The Second Temple Era model provides a three-dimensional illustration of the landscape of the city in the 1 ST century; the study center includes access to current world research on the scrolls; and the programming in its auditorium features, among other offerings, a short film dramatization illustrating aspects of the social and religious life of the time. The Shrine itself, reopened following its complete renewal in 2004, continues to provide the singular experience of viewing first-hand the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, written during the period illustrated by the model, together with important examples of early handwritten Biblical texts. The Model of Jerusalem in the Late Second Temple PeriodCovering nearly one acre, the model recreates Jerusalem as it was prior to 66 ce , the year in which the Great Revolt against the Romans erupted and the city and the Temple were destroyed. The model thus evokes the ancient city at its peak. Jerusalem at that time was at its largest, extending over an area of approximately 445 acres, more than twice the size of the Old City of Jerusalem today. Standing at a scale of 1:50 meters (with two centimeters in the model representing one meter in the ancient city), this recreation of Jerusalem is constructed primarily of the same local limestone – so-called Jerusalem stone – from which the city was constructed in ancient times and continues to be constructed today. Inaugurated publicly in 1966 – one year following the opening of the Israel Museum – the Second Temple Era model was built at the initiative of Hans Kroch, owner and developer of the Holyland Hotel, in memory of his son Jacob, who fell in Israel’s War of Independence. The model was constructed under the direction of one of the leading experts on ancient Jerusalem, Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Three main sources guided his reconstruction of the city as it would have appeared during the first century, including: a ncient writings, especially works by the Roman Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, the Mishnah and the Talmud, and the Gospels; other ancient cities excavated throughout the region that was once part of the Roman Empire; and archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem itself. Although the archaeological information available at the time of the model’s construction was limited, subsequent excavations in Jerusalem enhanced scholarly understanding of the ancient city and guided additional development of the model, which has been restored and further refined during its move to the Israel Museum. While this process will continue in the future, the model is not intended primarily to demonstrate archaeological accuracy, but rather to evoke the scale, architecture, and topography of Jerusalem in the historically crucial time corresponding with the creation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Project Architect for the relocation of The Second Temple Era Model is Avner Drori, Jerusalem. The Dorot Foundation Information and Study CenterThe Dorot Foundation Information and Study Center, made possible through the generosity of The Dorot Foundation, Providence, Rhode Island, in memory of Joy Gottesman Ungerleider, will provide Museum visitors, as well as students and scholars, with the opportunity to benefit from the knowledge and research available at the Shrine of the Book and to have access to historical and current research which is ongoing worldwide. Not a single facility, but rather a set of facilities integrated within the Museum’s campus area surrounding the Shrine of the Book, the center comprises an auditorium, classroom and public study facilities, and a digital library. Special interactive multimedia programs and other educational programs, for both on-site and remote learning, will be developed to enrich visitors’ and off-site users’ understanding of the Shrine of the Book, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the other Biblical manuscripts housed in the Shrine. The Study Center’s 80-seat theater will be available for lectures and conferences and will feature a short narrative film for general visitors, exploring through fictional narrative aspects of Jewish identity during the Second Temple period, as seen through the eyes of a young Jerusalem priest and a teenager from Qumran, the ancient site where the Dead Sea Scrolls, now housed in the Shrine, were originally discovered. The Project Architect for The Dorot Foundation Information and Study Center is Nahum Meltzer, Jerusalem. The Shrine of the Book Built in 1965, the Shrine of the Book was commissioned for the preservation and permanent display of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its holdings include eight of the most complete Scrolls ever discovered, as well as one of the most historically important Hebrew manuscript Bibles – the Aleppo Codex from the 10 th Century ce. Designed by the Austrian-born American architect Frederick Kiesler and the American architect Armand Bartos, the Shrine is considered a masterwork of modern architecture and an international landmark. It is the only permanently executed example of Kiesler’s work, designed to communicate both the physical experience of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a metaphorical dimension of the scrolls’ content. In 2004, through the generosity of Herta and Paul Amir, Los Angeles, and the D.S. and R.H. Gottesman Foundation, New York, the Shrine underwent a complete architectural restoration and an upgrade of all of its environmental and display systems, in order to ensure optimal conditions for the long-term preservation and display of the Scrolls and the Shrine’s other treasures.
Israel Museum Presents Major Exhibition Exploring the Role of Bread in Daily and Religious Life of Communities Across Israel
Both Judaism and Christianity assign an essential function to bread in their ceremonial meals celebrating the main rites of passage during the year. In Islam, bread has acquired an almost sacred status in daily life, commonly referred to as "God’s blessing."
Among three hundred loaves on display are decorated breads with colorful dyed eggs symbolizing joy; consecrated breads such as the Holy Host for the confirmation ceremonies of boys and girls; a twelve kilogram loaf made for a bar mitzvah ceremony; an elaborate "bride bagel" broken over a Jewish couple's head as a blessing of fertility and abundance; and bags for dough hung over the doorpost of a bridegroom’s home in Arab communities. The social and political significance of bread is explored through installations and films documenting moments of social unrest in Israel that gave rise to protest movements in which bread achieved symbolic status. The slogan "bread and work,"an expression of Israeli social protest, is examined in the exhibition from the period of the British Mandate, through the “Bread Square” demonstrations in Tel-Aviv in 2002-2005, and up to the present. The concluding section of the exhibition traces the bread making process in Israel, from the seed planted in the soil to the fresh loaf delivered to the table, through stories of personal home-baking expertise and commercial bread production. Photographs, archaeological finds, and tools from the early twentieth century also document the bread-making process. The exhibition is made possible by The Forchheimer Fund for Ethnographic Exhibitions, New York; The Beatrice C. Mayer Fund of the Chicago Community Foundation; The Sam Weisbord Trust; and the Donors to the Museum's 2006 Exhibition Fund.
"Mini Israel": 70 Models, 45 Artists, One Space
From March 24 through July 15, 2006, the Israel Museum presents " Mini Israel," an exhibition featuring 70 models of actual and imagined sites by contemporary Israeli artists. Several works on view portray past and present political events, while others depict artists’ private spaces and experiences. Created in different scales, materials, and media, these models are presented in a single, undivided space, transforming the exhibition gallery into a "meta-model" for coexistence of many diverse worlds in a single shared venue. "Like the map and the miniature, the model is a small-scale, symbolic mode of representation, but it is also a physical reality, a concrete space that viewers can physically enter and interact with," says artist Larry Abramson, who conceived and realized the exhibition. "Bringing together the work of over forty Israeli artists in one unregimented, unified space, 'Mini Israel' proposes an alternative ideal space of heterogeneity that relies on the creative interplay of its inhabitants' mutual recognition and ongoing dialogue for its existence." "Somewhere between a thematic group exhibition and a single work of art, Abramson's ' Mini Israel' project advances the spirit of innovation inaugurated by the Museum in its programming in contemporary Israeli art more than thirty years ago and underscores our continuing commitment to this form of dynamic curatorial experimentation," states James Snyder, Director of the Israel Museum. Among the works on view relating to contemporary Israeli life are: Maayan Strauss' prophetic model, titled Settlement Evacuation (2002); and Ravit Cohen Gat and Moshe Gerstel's three-meter-high model of the Separation Wall, titled Next Year in Jerusalem Rebuilt (2005). By contrast, works such as Etty Abergel's Basic Memory of One Street (2006), which recreates a street from her childhood, present a very personal perspective. Einat Best's Louis Marshall 17 (2005) also depicts a more personal reality through a composition of miniature furniture made from found materials in the artist's home. Yoav Weiss's Surveillance Plane (2006) circles the "skies" of the exhibition, transmitting its images to a closed-circuit monitor. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. The exhibition's curator-in-charge is Amitai Mendelsohn, Associate Curator, Department of Israeli Art; assisted by Aya Miron, Associate Curator. The exhibition is made possible by the donors to the Museum's 2006 Exhibition Fund: Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond J. Learsy, Aspen, Colorado; Hanno D. Mott, New York; and The Nash Family Foundation, New York. Trilingual labeling made possible by Lila and Gilbert Silverman, Detroit.
Japanese Influence on Contemporary Israeli Artists Explored in Exhibition At Israel Museum
The exhibition features works inspired by two sources: contemporary popular Japanese culture and traditional Japanese art. Various works are influenced by manga (Japanese comics) and anime (Japanese animation), such as Roee Rosen's Tommy Bob, which depicts a cartoon image of an atomic bomb. Other works on display incorporate traditional Japanese elements, such as Aya Ben-Ron’s hanging prints inspired by Japanese scrolls and the asymmetrical compositions in Doron Rabina's photographs, which reflect the artist's concern with flatness, one of the most distinct hallmarks of Japanese art. Yehudit Sasportas's Wall of Darkness is divided into rectangular sections with movable painted panels that resemble sliding wooden-framed Japanese paper doors or folding screens. Traditional Japanese iconography also appears in Yehudit Matzkel's series Tree of Knowledge, where the artists created glossy portraits of bonsai trees grown in Israel-among them pomegranate, orange, acacia, and fig-photographed against stark, black backgrounds. Other artists featured in the exhibition are Zoya Cherkassky, Roi Kuper, Hila Lulu Lin, Tal Shochat, and Eliezer Sonnenschein. The exhibition is made possible by the donors to the Museum's 2006 Exhibition Fund: Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond J. Learsy, Aspen, Colorado; Hanno D. Mott, New York; and The Nash Family Foundation, New York.
Israel Museum Celebrates a Century of Israeli Art
“This exhibition holds a special significance for us as it honors the man who, in both spirit and practice, became the founding father of the Israel Museum,' states James S. Snyder, the Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. "The exhibition follows the Museum's 40 th Anniversary, celebrated throughout 2005 with a yearlong exhibition series dedicated to the themes of Beauty and Sanctity'a fitting prelude for recognizing the man who aspired to become 'a high priest of art' and to create a visual language for a modern land of Israel." Boris Schatz: Father of Israeli Art provides a comprehensive view of Schatz's influence and achievement, bringing together the artist's own creations with a selection of work from the Bezalel workshops, produced in accordance with the artistic vision that Schatz himself developed and championed. As an introduction to the exhibition, the Israel Museum is displaying for the first time publicly a recently acquired handwritten document, which was later issued, with one additional sentence, as the Balfour Declaration . Prepared by a group of Zionist leaders and issued by the British Foreign Secretary on November 2, 1917, the declaration recognized the right of the Jewish people to a national home in the land of Israel. Considered a milestone in the history of the Zionist movement, this rare historical draft of the declaration contextualizes the work of Boris Schatz, who saw his own creations and those of other Bezalel artists as a subliminal expression of the emerging Zionist ideology and cultural vision. “Boris Schatz was a visionary whose goal was to establish, in Jerusalem, a cultural center for the birth of a new Hebraic art, "said Yigal Zalmona, the Israel Museum's Chief Curator-at-Large and curator of the exhibition. "Established in 1906, the Bezalel Academy gathered students from near and far, from the budding Zionist settlements and from the Jewish Diaspora, and continues to this day to promote Schatz's legacy and beliefs." Organized chronologically, Boris Schatz: Father of Israeli Art begins with a survey of his early career as a burgeoning artist in Warsaw, Vilna, and Paris. Through a selection of rare documents, photographs, and never before exhibited works of art, the exhibition examines Schatz's activities and artistic production in Sofia, in 1895, where he became a leading figure in the national effort to shape a new Bulgarian visual culture. The final chapter of the exhibition explores Schatz's artistic production during his Eretz-Israel period, his tenure as the director of the Bezalel Academy, and as the central figure of the first chapter in the history of modern Israeli art. The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue in Hebrew and English, including an essay by Yigal Zalmona, which reveals previously unknown research into the life and character of Boris Schatz. The exhibition and publication were made possible by The Schatz Foundation. Additional support for the publication was provided by the Israel National Lottery Council for the Arts. |
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