Haifa landscapes and Syrian goats: What's new in the Israeli art scene? - feature

HAIFA

The Hermann Struck Museum has just opened a new group exhibition. Shadow, Tree, Date presents works by current artists inspired by landscapes created by the German-Jewish print master who gave his name to the museum. 

Museum development coordinator Dana Nitzani and Haifa Municipality culture wing curator Ruth Oppenheim gathered a group of artists – Ayala Netzer, Mor Riemer, Farid Abu Shakra, Nivi Alroy, Talia Benabu and Einat Amir – to learn about his work, and the result is an intimate, diverse body of works displayed in Struck’s former home.

“He visited Haifa in 1903, created an etching of Theodor Herzl, and decided to live here,” Nitzani told The Jerusalem Post.

At the time, the new city was just being formed, and the well-traveled Struck was able to hop on a train to Beirut as well as visit his native Germany via steam boat as needed. His works depict how Haifa looked back then: a few houses, the wide sea, and palms.

Riemer, a fantastic print-artist, offers highly detailed works of iconic Haifa spots like the Nordau Street fountain. Struck had the good fortune of living in Hadar Hacarmel (and had a live-in maid) and looked out to a pristine landscape; Riemer offers scenes from the life of a busy urban mother who walks with a stroller in a hectic city.

Abu Shakra responded to Struck by recreating the late artist’s works and altering them, tearing the paper, sewing, and adding fighter jets to the sky above the sea.

“This is a dialogue between two artists,” Oppenheim told the Post.

It is also, on some level, a creative expression of anger over how this highly educated European never saw the people who shared the city with him.

Guided tours of Shadow, Tree, Date will be held in Hebrew on Friday, June 7, at 10:30 a.m.

The exhibition will be on display until Wednesday, January 15, 2025. 23 Arlozorov St. Call (04) 603-0800 for more details.

After the tour, walk to Leibel Bakery. Situated on the same street (number 8a), this little gem had been serving clients since the 1950s. Even the surname, Leibel, means baker (from the German laib, a loaf of bread). It is one of the few places that still offers, for example, Savarin cakes.

TEL AVIV

YOFI – Visit the New Wing of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and explore the Material Imagination exhibition (curated by Dalit Matatyahu) in a fantastical new way. Led by Clipa Theater performers, Yofi (Beauty) assumes the guise of a regular, English-speaking tour of the exhibition. Yet a technical malfunction (the door won’t open) prevents the audience from entering it. 

Directed by Idit Herman and performed by Reut Rivka, Tamara Nishri, Rotem Nachmany, Daniel Portnoy, and Yoav Weiss, this is a wonderful examination of what happens when the best intentions clash with the hectic reality of Israeli life. The 70-minute experience involves vocal and electronic music, dance, and a unique text written by Ariel Bronz. 

Performances will be held on Friday, June 7, at 2:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 18, at 9:30 p.m., and Saturday, June 22, at 8:30 p.m. 27 Shaul Hamelech Blvd. NIS 120 per ticket. Call (03) 639-9090 to book.

PATRIA – In 1940 the Haganah detonated an explosive device and sunk the steamship Patria at Haifa Harbor in a tragic accident. The Jewish fighters wanted to prevent the deportation to British-ruled Mauritius of 1,800 Jewish refugees, who fled Nazi-controlled Europe, by sabotaging the vessel before they could be sent away. The result was the death of hundreds.

Artist Tziky Eisenberg will host a panel discussion about alternative histories as part of his same-titled exhibition (Patria means homeland).

Dr. Tamar Berger, Prof. Jochai Rosen, Dr. David Gurevitz, and Prof. Emerita of Jewish Studies Yael Zerubavel will debate how history inspires artistic efforts to salvage meaning from the ruins. Free admission. Hebrew only. Wednesday, June 5, at 7 p.m. Kav 16 Gallery, 6 Sheshet Hayamim St.

EIN HOD

THE SMILE OF THE GOAT – A new exhibition at the Janco-Dada Museum, Marcel Janco’s Indigenous Israeli Goat, explores the relationship between goats and the landscapes of this land as understood by the modernist artist. Curated by Raya Zommer-Tal, visitors will see how the goat slowly outgrows the landscape, becoming the focus of the painted canvas.

In late July, artist Emi Sfard will join the exhibition with a follow-up project titled In the Eyes of the Beholding Goat. An artwork that blends animation and virtual reality to explore the politics of the goat, referring to the 1950s Black Goat Act, which made it illegal to herd black goats.

Seen by many Jews as a needed act to protect forests from overgrazing, this same act was deemed by many Arabs as an attempt to sever their ties to the land – since they were the main owners of so-called Syrian goats. The 1950s law was struck down in 2017 thanks to Joint List MK Jamal Zahalka, because it is now understood that grazing, which consumes forest vegetation, also prevents forest fires by depriving them of fuel.

From Thursday, June 6, to Tuesday, December 31. NIS 28 per ticket. English guided tours offered. Call (04) 984-2350 for more information.

HERZLIYA

OSIAS HOFSTATTER – The legacy of Polish-Jewish painter Osias Hofstatter is honored by Yair Garbuz in Heads with Painting Inside Them. A Holocaust survivor, Hofstatter began his life in Israel as a night guard in the late 1950s. Two decades later, he represented the country in the Sao Paulo Biennial. 

Supported by generous landlords, who agreed to accept rent in the form of paintings, he was able to work until his death in 1994. During one of his interviews, Hofstatter confessed to feeling very close to painters like James Ensor and Francisco Goya. Noting that Goya lived during the age of Napoleon, Hofsatter said that he is “from the time of Hitler.”

Garbuz, who sees himself as a painter of memory, is engaging this great and often overlooked painter in a wonderfully sensitive exhibition.

Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, 4 Habanim St. For more information, call (09) 055-1011.

ART NEWS

AVNER BEN GAL – The local art scene was shocked to learn of the untimely death of noted painter Avner Ben Gal, who passed away in early May at the young age of 57. His works were shown at the 2003 Venice Biennale and were awarded the 2008 Rappaport Prize, art critic Naama Riba noted.

Ben Gal said that his paintings are “a type of mix, not ‘pure’ Western art but a bit of everything, a sort of hybrid with doubtful qualities.” For him, the language of Western painting was not always useful when one wanted to paint a work about Islam or Israel, which needs “a mix that doesn’t make sense, to create something odd that doesn’t sit right.”

His last exhibition was shown at the Uri Lifschitz Building. Lifschitz was another iconoclastic artist who was able to produce meaningful, energy-filled paintings. Ben Gal is seen as part of a larger return to painting, with other artists like Peter Doig and Daniel Richter.

ARCHITECTURE – Israel will not participate in the planned 19th International Architecture Exhibition (Biennale Architettura) in Venice next year due to the bad state of the country’s national pavilion. The theme for the international exhibition, curated by Carlo Ratti, is Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. This failure to represent Israel in a world-class event spells another low point for the current administration.

PROTEST ART – The art community, which had been very active in public protests against the judicial reform a year ago, has been largely keeping quiet concerning the war taking place in the Gaza Strip following the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Artistic group Gen Z decided not to be silent any longer. Its members glued a provocatively titled work, Together We Will Be Murdered/Murder at the site of Menashe Kadishman’s monumental 1974 iron public sculpture Hitromemut (Ascending) in Tel Aviv. The work was taken down hours later.

DUSSELDORF – Oren Fischer’s vivid paintings of Hamas terrorists raping and murdering while taking selfies, and fighter jets bombing apartment buildings, will be shown at the Dusseldorf City Museum this weekend. The current exhibition is a continuation of an earlier homage to German-Jewish art gallery owner Max Stern shown at the Janco-Dada Museum under the title Lost Artworks.

Forced by the Nazis to hand over his art collection, Stern spent decades fighting to retrieve the paintings from his new home in Canada. He also promoted Canadian artists, among them the painter Emily Carr.

The last painting Fischer will show at the new exhibition is of his grandfather, a Jewish partisan, strangling a Nazi. Showing from Saturday, June 6, to Monday, July 29, at the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf.

Art Roundup is a monthly glance at some of the finest art exhibitions and events currently shown across the country. Artists, curators, and collectors are welcome to send pitches to hagayhacohen@yahoo.com with “Art Roundup” in the email subject.