The 2023 Jerusalem Biennale
International Solidarity Exhibitions
Our friends around the world opened some of the exhibitions that we could not open in Jerusalem on November 9, 2023. This was a spontaneous act of solidarity with Israel, with Israeli artists and with the Jerusalem Biennale.
And These Are the Names
Nov9-Nov14, AMIA Art Space, Buenos Aires
Curator: Elio Kapszuk
AMIA will host And These Are the Names, an exhibition based on the Biennale’s theme of Iron Flock, to pay tribute to the 1,400 victims of the October 7 massacre committed by Hamas. Created with a street art aesthetic, And These Are the Names is an installation on black walls, measuring 40 meters in length and 3.5 meters in height, where the names of the 1,400 fatal victims were spray-painted in a style that reflects the plaques on the facade of the AMIA building that commemorate the 85 people killed in the terrorist attack on Pasteur 633.
As part of the exhibition, the video “We Know” is displayed, featuring 31 relatives of individuals who were killed in the AMIA attack, demanding the urgent release of the kidnapped hostages and showing support for all grieving families affected by the Hamas massacre.
Elio Kapszuk, Director of Art and Production at AMIA and the curator of the exhibition:“When you gaze upon the walls where we painted each name, you are overwhelmed by the quantity and diversity, and the view becomes blurred. For a moment, it appears as an abstraction of seemingly senseless letters, but it immediately focuses on the history of each of the 1,400 fatal victims. Writing the names of each of the victims is to perpetuate their memory and incorporate their names into our own memory.”
Santiago Fallon and Gonzalo Hill were responsible for creating the painful list of those killed in a collaborative effort. Over 400 people participated, including family members of AMIA attack victims, survivors and family members of the Israeli Embassy attack in Argentina, institution collaborators, and representatives of community organizations.
The exhibition creates, in real time, an inspiring demonstration of what it means to stand in solidarity.
AMIA https://amia.org.ar/2023/11/06/y-estos-son-los-nombres/#
Hallelujah
Nov9-Dec17, Laurie M. Tisch Gallery, Marlene Meyerson JCC, Manhattan
Curator: Udi Urman
These challenging times underscore the critical importance of the relationship between Israel and the diaspora. The exhibition Hallelujah, curated by Udi Urman, showcases Israeli artists who work and live in New York and seek to explore their own cultural heritage. As immigrants to the United States, these artists found different ways of integrating their longings, fears, and memories into their work. This exhibition underscores the unique ways in which artists can transform individual experiences into resonant and universal truths related to belonging. Hallelujah is a collaboration between The Jerusalem Biennale and the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan.
Participating artists: Noa Charuvi, Hirut Yosef, Yehudit Feinstein, Yuli Aloni Primor, Gal Cohen, Ken Goshen, Gabriela Vainsencher, Maya Baran
https://mmjccm.org/current-exhibit?utm_source=Carousel&utm_medium=Carousel&utm_campaign=Hallelujah23
Activate: A New York Women’s Perspective
Nov9-Nov15, The Heller Museum, NYC
Curator: Hadas Glazer
In partnership with the Jewish Art Salon and American Sephardi Federation.
ACTIVATE features the work of six New York artists, whose divergent art practices together investigate the complexities of life as a woman today. Exploring physical and political power, this show centers systemic, holistic, female-driven change. Each in their own way, the artists explore the multifaceted expressions of feminine power amidst complex and fraught socio-political dynamics tied to bodies and heritage, intimacy and otherness, sex and religion. From performance to documentation, some of the artworks depict women’s activisms, while others are the activators themselves.
Through the use and exploration of feminine symbols such as Lilith, Women of the Wall, Statue of Liberty, and Jewish themes of Tikkun HaYam (heal the oceans), Kol Isha, and the current Israeli hostage crisis, the artists both activate and reactivate the themes and space.
Participating artists: Siona Benjamin, Goldie Gross, Ronit Levin Delgado, Joan Roth, Chelsea Steinberg Gay, Yona Verwer
https://jewishartsalon.org/j-a-s-exhibits/jerusalem-biennale-in-new-york
Archie Rand: THE SEVENTEEN
Nov9-Nov15, The Heller Museum, NYC
Curator: Samantha Baskind
The women featured in the loosely painted, electrically charged canvases are the well-recognized and lesser-known biblical figures. They are a continuation of Archive Rand’s forty-year artistic enterprise, exploring the Bible and Jewish texts in serialized paintings conceptually informed by twentieth-century culture. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Bibliothèque Nationale de France, among many others.
Behind the Mask
Nov12-Dec3, 2023; The Jewish Museum of Casale, Monferrato
Curators: Ermanno Tedeschi and Vera Pilpoul
BEHIND THE MASK, which was originally scheduled to open at the Umberto Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art in Jerusalem in November 9, is organized by the Acribia Cultural Association and the Jerusalem Biennale in collaboration with Casale Ebraica ETS Foundation of the Casale Monferrato Jewish community and the Lele Luzzati Foundation - Casa Luzzati, under the patronage of the Embassy of Israel in Italy.
The curators Ermanno Tedeschi and Vera Pilpoul tried to maintain the initial spirit of the project envisaged for the Jerusalem Biennale which was built around the central theme of Iron Flock. The selected works reveal a unique curatorial interpretation of the story of Esther, its meaning and symbolism surrounding it, bringing feminist, sociological and historical perspectives to life. The artists recount the concept of disguise and the mask as a representation of the projection of a desire, externalized through a costume, which can symbolize an escape from everyday life, an act of rebellion, the manifestation of pleasure or a hidden desire.
Israeli curator Vera Pilpoul: “The exhibition BEHIND THE MASK presents interpretations and variety of the possible reading contexts of the Book of Esther, which allow us to feel, even today, with great passion, the profound relevance of this book for our history as a nation and as women”.
Italian curator Ermanno Tedeschi: “The works chosen for this exhibition were created by Italian and Israeli artists who interpreted the themes and narratives in a plethora of styles. The practice of disguise, of identity and hidden identity, has taken on spiritual meaning over generations and emerges in many cultures”.
Visitors to the exhibition enjoy free admission and free access to the synagogue, the Museo degli Argenti (with a rich collection of liturgical objects) and the Museo dei Lumi (with a collection of Hanukkah lamps unique in the world).
Italian artists: Francesca Duscià, Patrizia Colombo, Lello Esposito, Tobia Rav, Cesare Catania, Dem, Daniele Basso, Ariela Böhm, Isabella Mandelli, Ezio Gribaudo, Emanuele Luzzati
Israeli artists: Dana Manor Cohen, Lili Almog, Lida Sharet Massad, Shai Azoulay, Etan Dor Shav, Danielle Feldhaker, Beverley Jane Stewart, Khen Shish, Ester Schneider
Whispering Land
Alternatives of the Landscape in Contemporary Hungarian and Israeli Art
Museum of Ethnography, Budapest
This solidarity exhibition in Budapest supporting the war-delayed opening of the 6th Jerusalem Biennale gives a renewed and wide-choice of symbolic expressions to the Land/scape, all of which are illustrated through art works by Israeli and Hungarian artists. As seen in this new shared art exhibition titled Whispering Ground– Suttogó Táj [in exile], the paintings, photos, scuptures and objects underscore that ideas, reflections, and opinions expressed by different generations of unrelated schools of belief can amalgamate into a united countenance of symbiotic desire: an ardent demand for human kindness, for humankind is longing for serenity and mutual acceptance. The Land and nature its pastoral Scape, and the human experience it presents have been decayed by countless years of wars.
"But even when Israeli artists did not deal with politics directly, the landscape was an emotionally formative or expressive point of departure for them. Israeli artist's fascination with the landscape represents the sensual expression of the nation's connection to Land - a connection described in the books of the Prophets as a relationship between a man and a woman."
