Visit A Station in Time at Beit Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Center (17 Ha’amal Street) as it opens alongside two other exhibitions (Silent Storm and Local – Fragile) on Thursday, September 1, at 7:30 p.m. The first exhibition, curated by Ravit Lazer, is a group exhibition of first studio artists and includes works by Ella Berry, Gal Devora Finkelstein and Yael Mordechay. Silent Storm (curated by Hadas Glazer) focuses on works by Ethel Pisareff and Local-Fragile (curated by Lisbeth Biger) is a group exhibition of local artists who opt to work in glass. Among the artists are Ukrainian-born Maria Dovganiuk, Noam Dover and Michal Cederbaum, featured in the Post a year ago, when they had the Amphorae solo exhibition in the same space.
Shown until October 29, 2022. Admission is free.
Karate world champion (in 2006) and established painter Inbar Horkani died last year. Her work was selected by curators Assaf Rahat and Yair Shulevitz as part of the new group exhibition Haunted (Gabi Yair Gallery, 3 Mosinzon St.). The exhibition offers something very different to the summer heat, a very European world of ghosts. At the Opera by Rakefet Viner Omer, with its two dripping figures, harks to the Phantom of the Opera and the weight of that musical tradition. Yehuda Rahanaev presents a mixed media on paper work titled With Tied Hands, which depicts naked figures in agony, who might be inmates in a death camp of the souls of sinners in hell (the full series is called Man to Man). A curator and art critic in his own right, Rahanaev hosts Pandora’s Box, a Hebrew radio program focused on art, which airs at the social radio station www.radiohevrati.co.il.
Shown until October 1, 2022. Admission is free.
Jerusalem
Attend the opening of The Testimonies of Things (Tuesday, September 13, at 6:30 p.m.). Ofri Cnaani’s doctorate about the 2018 burning of the National Museum of Brazil transformed into a spellbinding art exhibition located at Art Cube Artists’ Studios (26 HaOman St., 3rd floor, Talpiot), as part of Manofim. The capital’s Contemporary Art Festival is now entering its 14th annual edition.
The destruction of the museum meant the loss of roughly 20 million items. Cnaani wishes to explore this double afterlife. The items were mostly artifacts collected by Europeans, who came to the new world and destroyed its native cultures. Afterward, they were placed in that very Western institute, the museum, becoming objects of interest left behind. When the treasures were burned, they entered a sort of remembered afterlife once again. Some workers of the museum chose to tattoo a visual depiction of it on their bodies, usually its facade.
In her work, Cnaani asks if it is possible the ghosts which hover around the site are not punishing spirits, but specters with an edifying mission. The exhibition includes water, skin, ashes and a meteor. Stay for the 8 p.m. celebrations marking ten years of HaRama, an online quarterly art journal published by Manofim. At 9:30 p.m. head to the roof and rock at a house party. A performance by the rapper Echo (Echo Ariel Morgenstern) and Itzik Gil Avizohar, who released his album Watershed in May.
Manofim will continue until September 17 (Saturday) and has a great wealth of exhibitions, performances and encounters with working artists. Fun fact: The festival name does not mean cranes (Manofim) but What [are] the views (Ma-Ha-Nofim). This was the title picked when the festival was held at Talpiot for the first time, in 2008.
NIS 99 per ticket. To book, visit: https://manofim.org/specialpage/manofim-daily-pass-tuesday.
Bet Guvrin
Visit the national park each Thursday and Saturday evening to enjoy special art projections made for the Bell Caves by PILPELED (Nir Peled) for his exhibition The Reflection of the Ideal. The world-famous street artist is bringing art back home. The Sidonian Caves on the site have wall paintings created by the Greek-speaking residents of Maresha stretching all the way back from the Hellenistic period. The new works include a sleeping bare-shouldered woman with another woman, wearing a niqaab, standing next to her, muses ascending a staircase, and more. The screening is accompanied by special music composed for the art exhibition.
Bet Guvrin director Tomer Sarguti added that the caves include engraved texts left behind by those who lived in the region, which meshes well with street art. He also noted Pilpeled’s art is projected, so it does not harm the walls of the man-made Bell Caves.
The decision to offer artists a chance to work at local parks and sites of historical interest seems like a win-win. Those who visit the sites are exposed to current art and artists gain audiences that may not normally visit their galleries. Reflection by Dor Zlekha Levy (shown at the Pool of the Arches in Ramla) is another good example of this trend.
Shown until the end of October. Admission is included in the entry fee to the park (NIS 28 per adult).
Kibbutz Hazorea
Visit the Wilfrid Israel Museum of Asian Art on Saturday, September 3, at 6 p.m. and enjoy the opening of two unique exhibitions under curator Shir Meller-Yamaguchi. Garden of Emptiness by Koji Yamamoto and Floating World by Ori Gersht. Yamamoto is a Zen priest in the Soto school of Zen, founded by Dogen in the 13th century. Gersht is an Israeli photographer living in London.
Patrons will be able to meet the artists at 7 p.m. (Yamamoto) and 7:20 p.m. (Gersht). Readers wishing to learn more about Dogen might enjoy the 2016 work by Zen teacher Brad Warner Don’t be a Jerk, which is a comprehensive translation of the work penned by Dogen Treasury of the True Dharma Eye with commentaries.
Admission is free.
Arad
Meet artist Netally Schlosser at the Arad Contemporary Art Center (ACAC) on Saturday, September 3, at 12 p.m. (28 Ben Yair Street). Learn about how she discovered the lost desert kingdoms that used to exist here and transformed geological treasures into digital works of art for her exhibition Rocks and Symmetry in the Land of Sands.
Admission is free.
Art news
Photographer Dafna Ichilov was appointed the new head of the photography department at Musrara – The Naggar School of Art and Society. Ichilove will be replacing Ayelet Hashachar HaCohen, who will remain director of Musrara galleries. Ichilov is an experienced photographer and curator, who was one of the three female co-directors of Limbus gallery Tel Aviv (1992-2005). The other two were Galia Gur Zeev and Yehudit Gueta.
The Knesset art collection (under curator Sharon Soffer) bought City, Hour by Bezalel Ben Chaim during its latest round of purchases. Ben Chaim was one of the 25 artists selected, out of more than 750 artists who offered their works. His work will be shown in parliament alongside other new works recently acquired, among them: Swimming Pool by Ofir Begun and Zohar Gottesman’s With Thine Strong Hand.
Art Roundup intends to offer readers a monthly glance at some of the finest art exhibitions currently being shown across the country. Artists, curators and collectors are welcome to send pitches to hagay_hacohen@yahoo.com, with Art Roundup in the email subject. While all suggestions are welcome, sending information does not ensure the exhibition or collection will be featured.