Visit Roee Rosen’s solo exhibition at HaMidrasha Gallery. In War Tattoos, models show ink-stained fleshy responses to the ongoing war against Hamas. In The Dreadful Dreidel – A Military Historical Poem, the long and bloody history of military operations in the Gaza Strip is presented on a naked human back. From Rainbow in a Cloud (2004) to Iron Swords.
The work juxtaposes the bleak humor of Edward Gorey with the 1916 poem for children by Hayim Nahman Bialik, in which a child speaks about the “lead spin top” his father gave him for Hanukkah.
Bialik, who had an uncanny sensitivity to the brutality of Jewish history, inserted lead into the toy – the same metal used by the Sanhedrin to execute felons by pouring hot lead down their throats.
Other images reveal shrouded bodies with the words “Final Victory” printed on them in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
In another work, a woman has a tattoo of a transfusion catheter engulfed in flames. This is a more personal work as Rosen had been diagnosed with cancer and his hospital stays are described in the exhibition texts. The second part of the exhibition – Luci is Sick – depicts a strange voyage through sickness in his usual, detail-rich drawings.
Like Untitled (Map of Auschwitz), a 2001 work created by Haim Maor in which the map of the Nazi death camp was projected on a human back, Rosen’s tattoos don’t really adorn anyone who is actually walking the street right now: They are bloodless, made-believe.
Art writer Dr. Smadar Shefi noted that Maor used his own back for the work. Rosen famously sends fictional doubles he invents like Justine Frank, Lucy, and even Eva Braun to the wider world. In it, they dance a complicated dance that beckons the viewer to dig in and decipher the many allusions and clues Rosen offers.
Curated by Gilad Melzer and shown until Friday, January 17, this is the last exhibition to be on display at HaMidrasha Gallery.
19 Hayarkon St. Tuesday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 4 – Last day to visit Brand New Middle East by Avishai Platek and Water Fold by Avital Cnaani at Maya Gallery. Curated by Hadassa Cohen, Platek offers lush, large paintings of prickly pears. Due to the twists of Zionist history in the region, the humble Mexican plant became linked to both Jewish and Arab populations and their hunger for land and belonging.
Hananiah Reichman used it to describe Hebrew speaking children born during the pre-state period and their supposed direct and free manners, a sharp contrast to the alleged values of polite passivity passed on in the Jewish Diaspora.
Arab villagers, who used prickly pears to mark the boundaries of their fields, lent it to the value of holding on to the land at all cost (Sumud). The late Asim Abu Shakra, for example, painted prickly pears in potted plants.
Noting the irony of a plant from the New World understood to be the picture of what it means to be autochthonic, Platek offers almost alien landscapes of fertility, decay, and growth.
“Art is a way of sleeping with the enemy,” he said, quoting the poem “Contra o Muro” by South African painter Marlene Dumas. “Art had always offered a way to fathom life through abstraction,” he told The Jerusalem Post.
2 Shvil Hameretz St. 2’d floor. Opening Hours: Wednesday to Thursday noon to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free. Visitors can also take a few steps and see Still Water by Irit Katav at the Shared Art Salon, 5 Shvil Hameretz St. Fifth floor. Curated by Yehuda Rahanaev, this small but touching exhibition will be shown today for the last time from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
JERUSALEM LUCID DREAMS
Visit the Israel Museum to explore a rich and highly diverse exhibition curated by Dr. Adina Kamien. The 180 selected art works celebrate a century of Surrealism and the 60th birthday of the museum. “In dreams we are psychotic because we see things that are not really there,” Kamien told the press during a guided tour of the exhibition. The range is truly breathtaking, from a 4000 years old headrest on which the people of ancient Egypt laid a weary head to sleep to a 1993 work by Michal Na’aman.
Titled Golden Showers, it alludes to a well-known patient Sigmund Freud had. Sergei Pankejeff became famous when the father of psychoanalysis described him as Der Wolfsmann (The Wolfman) in his writing. Pankejeff had a recurring childhood dream during which he saw a pack of wolves sitting on a treetop looking at him. A wealthy man, Pankejeff did not enjoy Freud’s suggestion that the dream is an expression of a childhood trauma of stepping in on his parents having sex and switched therapists.
The famous 1799 Francisco Goya print The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is deeply examined in a body of works stretching from the shown original on display to Rosen’s works as his fictional alter-ego Justine Frank to Yinka Shonibare’s same-titled 2008 series in which each dreamer represents an entire continent.
Kamien also gently shows an undercurrent dialog between women artists and their fathers in Israeli art with works by Dina Goldstien and Nelly Agassi.
Agassi’s works are shown next to those of her late father, Meir Agassi. Goldstien’s colorful, delicate, and highly personal dreaming rooms can be seen as being in a subtle conversation with works by her own father, Gary Goldstien.
In Alma Mater, Yuval Avital brings 112 speakers into the museum that play 72 hours of sound from large cement containers. “I used to come here as a child and play on Robert Indiana’s (1977) Love sculpture in the museum’s garden,” Avital told the Post.
“Now when I did some shooting for this exhibition I realized how small that work is.”
‘Alma Mater’ and 'Lucid Dreams’ will be shown until Saturday, June 7. Patrons are invited to attend a Hebrew panel with Kamien, Agassi, Rosen, and other artists on Tuesday, January 28, 5:45 p.m. at 11 Ruppin Blvd. Opening Hours: Monday, Thursday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. NIS 62 per ticket. Visit https://www.imj.org.il/en for more.
HERZLIYA TEXTILE
Traditionally seen as a feminine, practical art since the time of Homer, who described Penelope as sitting at the loom spinning as a means to fend off her suitors, weaving and its connection to Israeli history and culture is understood quite differently today.
In Siona Shimshi: Textile Patterns in Her Own Hand, at the Herzliya Museum, the pioneer artist is explored in an exhibition curated by Yuval Etzioni. Shimshi was an important artist who designed fashion, textiles, and ceramics and shaped nearly two decades of Israeli visual language between the 1960s and the ‘80s. In Structures: Weaving in Israel, from Functionalism to Fiber Art, curator Noga Bernstein showcases works by Mordecai Ardon and Haim Hakimyan, among others, in a group exhibition of artists who, together, show the progress of textile art in Israel since the 1940s to our own day.
4 Habanim St. Shown until Saturday, April 19. Opening Hours Monday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Patrons can meet Bernstein for a gallery talk on Saturday, January 11, at 12:45 p.m. Included in the NIS 30 admission cost. Hebrew only. Visit https://www.herzliyamuseum.co.il/en/ for more.
Tuesday, January 14 – Join an art panel titled Between Jewish and Israeli at the Dina Recanati Art Foundation. Dr. Ronit Steinberg, an expert on Visual Arts in Jewish Society, will be among the panel guests. Moderated by Yehuda Rahanaev.
7 p.m. 1 David Hamelech St. Forum Building. Minus one level. Free. In Hebrew. Register via Dinarecanatiartgallery@gmail.com.
Art Roundup is a monthly glimpse at some of the finest art exhibitions and events currently 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.
