Art and creativity should always have a space at the heart of the Polis, the concept of city and citizenship and independence and collective identity. In this sense, the announcement of plans to restore Bezalel, Israel’s leading academy of art of design, to a new site in the heart of Jerusalem, has both a philosophical and practical soundness. More or less. “I know that this is a loaded term in Israel, but this (move) should be thought of as a return,” Eva Illouz, President of the Academy, observed at the …

Prepare for shocks and surprises if you visit “Honey I’ve Rearranged the Collection” – a selection of works from the Phillippe Cohen collection of contemporary art, curated by Ami Barak. A believer in the questionable statement that ‘Painting is Dead,’ Cohen is an ardent collector of conceptual – ideas – art.  In fact one of his star possessions is an artwork that does not exist in material form. By the British-born artist Tino Sehgal it comprises a performance from 2002,’ bought’ from the artist in which a man walks up …

The New Logistics Center in South Tel Aviv, on the border of Holon , is the latest venue selected for the Fresh Paint Contemporary Art Fair, now in its sixth incarnation.  (A plea to the organizers: next year, please refrain from opting for another ‘surprising’ location, and settle instead on a more easily accessible venue).
The big news was the introduction of Fresh Design – where well known designers are displaying their work in the same space as 33 up-and- coming young designers(‘The Design Greenhouse.’) In the Art section of the …

Musrara Mix 13, the eclectic, festive, international, multidisciplinary event, will take place from May 28 – 30, 2013 in the Musrara neighborhood, home to the Naggar school of Photography, Media, New Music, Animation and Phototherapy. Now in its 13th edition, the school has established a tradition of an arts festival with rich and diverse offerings, developed around a different theme each year. This year’s theme is “NoEgo,” exploring the presence and impact of the ego in life and art.
The festival offers three days of exhibitions, workshops and performances, created by …

Fresh Paint 6 will take place in Tel Aviv from May 21 – 26, 2013. The contemporary art fair showcases the work of independent artists in Israel, as well as those represented by galleries. The artsy happening maintains a fresh perspective, appearing in a new venue each year. This year’s venue will be The New Logistics Center, Tel Aviv – Yafo, 48 Tel Giborim Street, South Tel Aviv. To see the map, click here.
An intriguing new feature this year is the fair’s expansion into the realm of design, with the …

Rachel is 9, and has the countenance of absolute gloom. She’s not looking forward to the start of the new school year; going to bed with her bag strapped to her back suggests as much. Mind you, the problems might lie as much at home as with the life exterior. She shares her bedroom with her grandmother, seemingly catatonic even though she was chucked out of her nursing home for…well, as she puts it, “I’m sure he had a heart complaint beforehand.” As for her parents? Michel Gladstein, her father, …

The exhibition Flesh and Blood is not for the faint-hearted. Curated by Raphi Etgar, the founder and director of this socio-political Museum, it brings together works by 28 artists from Israel, Europe and the US that focus on Man’s harsh treatment of animals. The result is an exceptionally high quality show, but one that certainly has the potential to distress the viewer.
A wall text set alongside Aquarium, a series of shadowy paintings by Etgar of fish, explains that his  ‘curatorial journey” towards this particular exhibition began long ago while visiting …

A successful publicity campaign ensured that thousands of Israelis would flock to Haifa’s International Convention Center during the holidays to view 300 artworks by Salvador Dali, he of the crazy moustache, eccentric personality and love of melting clocks.
The works valued at 60 million dollars came almost exclusively from the collection of Enrique Sabater, secretary and assistant to Dali for 13 years. Nearly everything is for sale – paintings, lithographs, etchings and sculpture – the most expensive piece, a painting entitled The Servants of the Disciples at Emmaus (1960), valued at …

Video art came of age in this country in 2011 when Nira Pereg, a young Israeli video artist, was awarded Tel Aviv Museum’s Gottesdiener Foundation prize. This was an  honor for Pereg, but also her selection for this prize may be viewed as the art establishment’s way of placing this medium on equal footing with painting and sculpture, acknowledging its power and possibilities.
Pereg, is showing four new installations at this Tel Aviv venue. All of them, influenced by the cinema, documentary or nature films, were produced by complex editing techniques. …

Questioning the history of intricate relationships between hosts and guest, and the implications and associations that arise from a consideration of these terms, Hosts & Guests, a program of nine exhibitions, workshops, and events will open at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on May 2, 2013. Inspired by Immanuel Kant’s 1795 essay, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” and Jacques Derrida’s book, Of Hospitality, the project is the initiative of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and ARTIS, conceptualized and directed by guest curator Steven Henry Madoff, and developed in …