A New Awakening

Hosted by The Shatz House

The Schatz House, private home of Boris Schatz and his family, was part of the complex that Schatz founded as home of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem and the Bezalel National Museum (which later became the Israel Museum, Jerusalem). Schatz, a colorful figure full of inner contradictions, envisioned a utopia integrating the sacred and the mundane in the arts. Only a single wall separated his personal life from his role at the Bezalel School. The art institution, his family, students, engagement in all of the activities surrounding it all, and – finally – the breakdown, all became one.

For nearly a century, the house served as a workspace and studio for the various members of the Schatz Family: art critic Olga Pevsner, Boris Schatz’s wife; his children Zohara and Bezalel; and his daughter-in-law Louise, all three of them artists. His daughter Angelica, from his first marriage, who did not live with them, was also an artist; all passed away without children.

The House was a symbol, perhaps a tragic symbol, of the attempt to bring about an intertwined aesthetic and national redemption. Inactive for most of the year, it now hosts one of the projects of the Jerusalem Biennale for Contemporary Jewish Art, also striving to establish a sphere of art connecting the holy and the daily, to create a new language of Jewish art and culture.

At this point in time, through works by contemporary artists Porat Salomon, Ossi Yalon, and Debbie Margalit, the exhibition “Wake Up” strives for a new look at the at the purpose of things to arouse and “restart” the story anew. Perhaps in this way it will facilitate the writing of a new chapter, or a new end to the narrative.

Visit by appointment