The two main venues of The Jerusalem Biennale 2019 - For Heaven’s Sake! are completely opposite in nature. Come and explore the dispute between them and experience the best JB2019 can offer.

One of the main streets in Jerusalem started off as a dirt track to the city of Bethlehem. Over time it received many different names until the King David Hotel was built in the early 1930’s giving the street it’s official name. Today the street hosts many luxurious hotels, learning centers, museums and galleries.

The King David Street Tour will take place over 3 venues: The International YMCA, Hebrew Union College (HUC) and The North African Heritage Museum.

THE INTERNATIONAL YMCA JERUSALEM

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THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE (HUC)

The Hebrew Union College is a prestigious center for Jewish learning and cutting edge scholarship whose educational and cultural outreach programs touches peoples’ of all faiths and backgrounds. The 2 exhibitions showcased here, are as daring and innovative as their host. The first exhibition introduces graduates from the Pardes School of Art who explore the tradition of sacrifice and question its relevance to Jewish life today, whilst the second exhibition brings local and international artists together in search of traces of the Jewish heritage of Warsaw.

THE WORLD WIDE NORTH AFRICA JEWISH HERITAGE CENTER*

The North Africa Jewish Heritage center, housed in a magnificent building in the center of Jerusalem, preserves and exhibits the extraordinary history and heritage of North African Jewry. The exhibition showcased here is inspired by the words of the Rebbe of Kotzk, who encouraged his followers to look not only heavenward but also inward for inspiration and understanding. A group of 6 secular and religious Israeli artists come together to explore this idea.

*This venue is offered only as part of The King David Street Tour

This tour involves some walking and requires comfortable walking shoes,and water.

The valley between the Old City and the New is filled with fascinating history, rich culture and unmatched beauty. The Jerusalem Biennale has chosen three venues within this valley which echo it’s uniqueness, to host exhibitions dealing with the concepts of discourse, dialog and confrontation.The tour begins at The Begin Heritage Center, continues to the Mishkenot Cultural Center and concludes in the Artists Colony.

THE BEGIN HERITAGE CENTER

The Begin Heritage Center houses stories of heroism, political fortitude and bravery. As such it is a most fitting host for the Biennale’s exhibition of the Hebrew Woman’s suffrage movement. A fascinating story of the trials and tribulations of these brave Hebrew women and their continued effect and influence upon contemporary Israel.

MISHKENOT CULTURAL CENTER

The mishkenot cultural center, is a world-class center of cultural and artistic creativity and academic inquiry, and an incubator for multidisciplinary cultural content relating to global culture and art. The center is situated in a building constructed over 150 years ago as part of the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside of the Old City’s walls.

Here, the Jerusalem Biennale showcases the exhibition: “In the East: Spain and Jerusalem.” Local and international artists, investigate their complex ties to both the Middle Eastern and local environment in which they live and work, and the Western culture and discourse to which they are exposed and influenced. This show raises the complexity of Israeli art and its place within the global sphere.

ARTISTS COLONY

In the valley between the Old City of Jerusalem and the New, lies the quaint and picturesque “Artists’ Colony;” home to painters, weavers, silversmiths, and photographers. Here the Biennale invites local and international artists and designers to converse with the Talmudic idea that “the Torah does not exist in Heaven but rather within the distinctive jurisdiction of man”. This exhibition is a fascinating visual interface between halakhic literature and the language of contemporary visual and material culture.

Urban Art Initiatives rely on mutual communication between artist and community to create work that is constantly relevant and engaging. This tour takes you through the streets of the heart of Jerusalem, to experience where and how art meets the public sphere. We conclude at the Machaneh Yehudah market; Jerusalem’s hub of creative, cultural and culinary expression.

Urban Art Initiatives are relatively new to the Jerusalem art scene. Over 12 years ago, a group of Bezalel Art School graduates felt unsatisfied in exhibiting their work in the “white cube” of a gallery space, and chose instead to include the route to the gallery as part of their shows. This slowly led them to taking their work outside of the gallery completely and integrating it with the streets and the community at large. MUSLALA, Jerualem’s leading Urban Art Initiative is extremely active in the public art sphere. They find their home in the Klal building, which now stands on the ruins of what once was the Alliance Art School, a vocational art school, built approximately 70 years before the establishment of the State of Israel. Their work in this specific building invites them to interface with what was, and to challenge and engage with contemporary Israeli ideas of arts, crafts, and creativity within the public sphere.

If you have only limited time in Jerusalem, or you are specifically interested in one of the venues of JB2019, join us to a guided tour in any of the smaller venues, such as the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, The Akim House, The Studio of your own gallery or others.

AKIM HOUSE in BAKA’ The Rachel Straus Center for Art and Culture AKIM.

Founded in 1951, AKIM Jerusalem is devoted to providing education and rehabilitation services for mentally disabled children and adults, and the first of it’s kind to offer them independent and community-based living facilities. AKIM HOUSE is situated in the picturesque neighborhood of Baka in Southern Jerusalem.

The Biennale values the partnership with AKIM which began in 2017. This time round, residents have taken on the challenge of expressing their connection to the Biennale theme: ”For the Sake of Heaven” with the use of a variety of media, making this exhibition an exciting and vibrant addition to the Jerusalem Biennale.

THE VAN LEER INSTITUTE

The Van Leer Institute, situated on a magnificent campus in one of the most prestigious neighborhoods of Jerusalem, is a leading center for advanced studies and intellectual public discourse in areas touching on the main foci of tension in Israeli society. The exhibitions showcased here continue the theme of discourse. The first exhibition which includes 12 artists, explores the Biblical and Talmudic discussions about the connection between the artists raw idea and his/her motivation to manifest it. The second exhibition embraces the tensions between both content and form, and balance and imbalance as a road to transcendence.

STUDIO OF YOUR OWN (SOHO)

“Studio Of Her Own” is a platform for Jewish religious women artists at the outset of their careers, to develop and grow in an atmosphere of mutual support and understanding. Founded 6 years ago in Jerusalem, SOHO aims to empower the voice of the religious woman artist within the public sphere, whilst also serving as a bridge between Jerusalem's diverse populations. Artists come from the myriad of Jewish religious backgrounds in Israel, and are all graduates of leading Israeli art schools.

This group exhibition deals directly and unapologetically with the idea of “Peace in the Home”. In Hebrew this is translated as “Shalom Bayit” and is a Jewish religious concept of domestic harmony and good relations between husband and wife.