Israel Museum - 2011 Exhibitions

William Kentridge: Five Themes

March 4, 2011 � June 18, 2011
This major traveling survey of recent work by the renowned South African artist William Kentridge spans the 1980s to the present, with particular emphasis on projects completed since 2000. The presentation features nearly 100 works in a variety of mediums�including drawing, print, animation, theatrical design, books, and sculpture�and is structured around five primary themes that have engaged Kentridge over the course of his career, tracing the development of his subject matter from a specifically South African context to the exploration of more universal subjects. While known for addressing apartheid in his native country, the artist has in recent years expanded dramatically both the scale of his projects and their thematic concerns, newly among them his studio practice, colonialism in Namibia and Ethiopia, and, most recently, post-revolutionary Russian history. Other highlights include new drawings and a film installation inspired by his staging of The Nose, Dmitri Shostakovich�s opera based on the short story by Nikolai Gogol, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in spring 2010.

William Kentridge: Five Themes is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Norton Museum of Art, and curated by Mark Rosenthal, Adjunct Curator at the Norton Museum of Art. At the Israel Museum, the exhibition is organized by Suzanne Landau, Yulla and Jacques Lipchitz Chief Curator of the Fine Arts and Landeau Family Curator of Contemporary Art.

The Other Woman
Portrayals in Asian Art

March 11, 2011 � June 16, 2011
Ticho House, an off-site venue of the Israel Museum
The Other Woman showcases about thirty works of art in various mediums that depict women and goddesses, giving us insight into cultural perceptions of beauty during a range of historical periods in China, Japan, India, and the Himalayas. In these cultures, the "beautiful woman" is not the figure of the wife, who, if portrayed at all, is shown as a chaste figure, but rather the "other woman"�the concubine, courtesan, or goddess. The exhibition explores social attitudes toward the "other woman," who, while not recognized in the formal social structure, was nonetheless an integral part of society. The exhibition is curated by Miriam Malachi, Associate Curator of Asian Art.

Helmar Lerski: Working Hands
Photographs from the 1940s

April 17, 2011 � July 2, 2011
This exhibition presents the work of the avant-garde portrait photographer Helmar Lerski, alias Israel Schmuklerski (1871-1956). Some 150 modern prints from negatives in the Museum collection will be on display, the majority being unpublished photographs Lerski took in Palestine between 1932 and 1948, on view for the first time. These images were made using Lerski�s signature technique of lighting his subjects with mirrors to achieve dramatic results. The images on display will focus primarily on working people, and on their hands in particular.

Life: A User�s Manual

April 12, 2011 �February, 2012
This 2011 Youth Wing exhibition, developed for family audiences, explores how prominent contemporary artists from Israel and around the world have responded to today�s "Do it Yourself" culture and its focus on instructions for everyday living. Life: A User�s Manual features approximately fifty paintings, sculptures, video works and installations that incorporate the visual language of instruction manuals. Some of the artists, like Mircea Cantor and Julita W�jcik, create their own absurd or irrational sets of instructions, while others, like Guy Ben Ner and Gal Weinstein, take a child-like approach in their work using humor and irony to disrupt the conventional use of instructions and to emphasize the gap between written manuals and reality. All the artists featured use instructions as a means for creating original and personal works of art that critiques contemporary culture and its tendency to supress individuality. The exhibition is curated by Aya Miron, Associate Curator, Israeli Art Department.

A Prince�s Choice
Prints and Drawings from the Esterh�zy Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

April 1, 2011 � July 2, 2011
The first in a series of Israel Museum exhibitions showcasing private art collections that were donated to public institutions, this exhibition explores the collection of Nicolas II Esterhazy (1765-1833), a patron of the arts whose collection found its permanent home at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. The exhibition will focus on 16th � 18th century prints and drawings of the German, Italian, French and Netherlandish schools, and features works by Carracci, Cranach, Durer, Fragonard, Poussin, Raphael, Rembrandt, Tiepolo, and Veronese, among others. The exhibition is curated by Meira Perry-Lehmann, Michael Bromberg Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings.

Yom Chol (Day of Sand): Micha Ullman (working title)

June 3, 2011 � November 19, 2011
The first museum retrospective of noted Isareli artist Micha Ullman (b. 1939), Yom Chol (Day of Sand) spans the Ullman�s fifty-year career in sculpture and drawing. Ullman, who was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 2009, is known for subterranean installations, some of which barely protrude from the ground, as well as his sculptures made of iron and sand � all of which address such universal themes as place and home, absence and emptiness. Ullman achieved international recognition in 1995 for the deeply moving underground library void, created as a memorial in Berlin�s Bebelplatz, where the Nazis burned thousands of books on May 10, 1933. To celebrate the Israel Museum�s new retrospective, Ullman will create a 200-square-meter installation based on his own unique sand-throwing technique. The exhibition is curated by Chief Curator-at-Large Yigal Zalmona.

The Master
Glass Vessels by Ennion in The Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, London

Opening May 31, 2011 � April 15, 2012
This exhibition will present twenty unique glass vessels from the first-century CE, including seven highly rare examples of the work of the master glassmaker Ennion, who began his career in Sidon (present-day Lebanon) and later immigrated to Italy. On public view for the first time, these mold-blown vessels, including decorated jugs, vases, beakers, and cups, come from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection, one of the richest assemblages of Ennion�s masterpieces in the world. The remaining vessels in the collection, which are not inscribed with Ennion�s name, were most likely produced in his workshop.

NEWS II (working title)

August 2011 � January 2012
News II includes a range of new acquisitions and recent gifts of international and Israeli contemporary art, all on view for the first time at the Museum. The works, by artists including Michal Helfman, Ann Veronica Janssens, Adrian Paci, Yehudit Sasportas, Hiraki Sawa, and Maya Zak, among others, deal with the subject of enchanted and metaphorical landscapes, wondrous interiors, and day-dreams. NEWS II is curated by Suzanne Landau, Yulla and Jacques Lipchitz Chief Curator of the Fine Arts and Landeau Family Curator of Contemporary Art, and Amitai Mendelsohn, Curator of the David Orgler Department of Israel Art.

Ongoing Exhibitions from 2010:

Photographs
Gilad Ophir, Sharon Ya�ari

Through February 2, 2011
Ticho House, an off-site venue of the Israel Museum
This exhibition is presented in conjunction with "Traces IV" � The Biennale for Drawing in Israel. This year�s theme is the thicket, a dominant motif in works on paper as well as in photography and is exemplified here by the works of two Israeli artists, Gilad Ophir and Sharon Ya�ari. Although both photographers focus on the traces left in the landscape following urban development and abandonment, their works also reflect different perspectives on the concept of thickets, whether in the countryside or in the city. Echoes of Anna Ticho�s drawings (exhibited on the upper floor of Ticho House), which commonly explored the thicket either as subject or technique, may also be found in Ophir�s and Ya�ari�s photographs. "Traces IV" � The Biennale for Drawing in Israel � is held in five different venues throughout Jerusalem.

Jakob�s Dream
Steinhardt in Prints, Drawings, and Paintings

Through March 5, 2011
This exhibition celebrates the work of Jakob Steinhardt, an early and noted founder of the Berlin Expressionist movement Die Pathetiker, an avant-garde group established in 1912. Following the rise of Nazism, Steinhardt immigrated to Palestine and continued working and teaching until his death in 1968. His oeuvre focuses primarily on social and biblical themes, as well as scenes from the Eastern European shtetl and Jerusalem. The exhibition displays approximately 120 of Steinhardt�s woodcuts, drawings, and paintings in honor of the gift of his artistic Estate by his family to the Israel Museum, and it is curated by Ronit Sorek, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings.

A Journey through Jewish Worlds
Highlights from the Braginsky Collection of Hebrew Manuscripts and Printed Books

Through April 30, 2011
One of the world�s most important private collections of Hebrew manuscripts and printed books, assembled by Swiss collector Ren� Braginsky, is shown to the public for the first time as part of a three-venue world tour culminating in Jerusalem. Spanning seven centuries, the works on view include such rare masterpieces as a Shema Yisrael traveler�s amulet from the 5th�6th century CE and a 19th-century Haggadah illuminated by Charlotte von Rothschild under the guidance of the noted German-Jewish artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. These and other magnificently illuminated works are presented at the Israel Museum alongside illuminated masterworks from the Museum�s own collection. The exhibition is curated by Rachel Sarfati, Curator in the Department of Judaica.

Breaking Ground
Pioneers of Biblical Archaeology

Through April 30, 2011
As an introduction to the renewed Bronfman Archaeology Wing, this exhibition illuminates the connection between the artifacts on display in the Wing and the history of archaeological field work in modern Israel, from 19th-century tomb raiders to modern-day excavations. Bringing archaeology to life through the individual stories of Flinders Petrie, Felicien de Saulcy, and Conrad Schick�three representative figures in the founding history of Middle Eastern archaeological exploration in the 19th century�the exhibition introduces viewers to their pioneering work in the field, as well as to the activities of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Excavation tools, archaeological findings, photographs, and drawings are among the objects in the exhibition, highlighged by the loan from the Louvre Museum, Paris, of the 1st Century CE Sarcophagus of Queen Helene of Adibene from the Tombs of the Kinds in Jerusalem, excavated by de Saulcy in 1863 and on loan from the Louvre for the first time. The exhibition is curated by Hagit Maoz Lin, Assistant to the Chief Curator of Archaeology.

The Four Seasons

Through December 7, 2011
The depiction of the seasons has been a popular genre throughout the history of art, and especially during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, based on an academic approach using a standard set of landscapes and symbols. However, beginning in the late-19th century, with artists leaving their studios to paint outdoors, the portrayal of seasons became a more colorful affair, focusing less on agrarian society and more on cityscapes and urban life. The Four Seasons examines this point of transition in the history of art through works by Peter Breughel the Younger, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Rodin, and Jacob Ruysdael, complemented by works by contemporary artists such as Eldar Farber and Yuval Yairi, among others. The exhibition is curated by Shlomit Steinberg, Hans Dichand Curator of European Art.