Material Imagination:
Israeli Art from the Museum’s Collection
CURATED BY Dalit Matatyahu
New Permanent Collection display
Tel Aviv MUSEUM OF ART
27 Shaul HaMelech Blvd, Tel Aviv
DINA AND RAPHAEL RECANATI GALLERIES
HERTA AND PAUL AMIR BUILDING
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Tel Aviv Museum of Art is delighted to announce the launch of our new permanent display of the Israeli art collection. The exhibition will include more than 120 works by leading artists, some well-known, others making their debut here. The exhibition Material Imagination departs from the story of Israeli art as a chronological narrative running parallel to the national story. Material Imagination is a model of thinking conceived by philosopher Gaston Bachelard during years of delving into the four elements—earth, air, water, and fire—and their incarnations in the imagination and in art. The material imagination thrives in the dialogue between the materials of the world and archaic images—archetypes accumulated and etched in human consciousness.
The model formulated by Bachelard is the organizing principle underpinning the current collection exhibition. The three galleries of Israeli art unfold three chapters: Promised Land, Airship, and Blazing Movement. Each chapter examines the works through a host of associations arising from the artworks' materials or elemental images. This distinction returns the gaze to the materiality of the artwork as an act and an object, requiring an attentive gaze, free of preconceptions regarding the art created here from the beginning of the previous century to the present day.
Participating artists: Etti Abergel, Larry Abramson, Walid Abu Shakra, David Adika, Zvi Aldouby, Alima, Dalia Amotz, Arie Aroch, Alize Auerbach, Shmuel Bak, Micha Bar-Am, Ido Bar-El, Joav BarEl, Adina Bar-On, Arnon Ben-David, Eitan Ben Moshe, Asaf Ben-Zvi, Deganit Berest, Adam Berg, "Bezalel", Naftali Bezem, Joshua (Shuky) Borkovsky, Yossi Breger, Bella Brisel, Joseph Budko, Yael Burstein, Miriam Cabessa, Moshe Castel, Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi, Chen Cohen, Mirit Cohen, Pinchas Cohen Gan, Nurit David, Maayan Elyakim, Leon Engelsberg, Käthe Ephraim Marcus, Bianca Eshel-Gershuni, Bracha L. Ettinger, Eliyahu Fatal, Yair Garbuz, Eliyahu Gat, Moshe Gat, Gideon Gechtman, Moshe Gershuni, Tsibi Geva, David Ginton, Pesi Girsch, Michael Gitlin, Yitzhak Golombek, Michael Grobman, Michael Gross, Yehoshua Grossbard, Nahum Gutman, Joseph Halevy, Emanuel Hatzofe, Shoshana Heimann, Michal Helfman, Tamar Hirschfeld, Irit Hemmo, Samuel Hirszenberg, Eti Jacobi, Uri Katzenstein, Chaim Kiewe, Yehiel Krize, Raffi Lavie, Helmar Lerski, Yudith Levin, Batia Lichansky, Ella Littwitz, Pinchas Litvinovsky, Maryan, Moshe Matusowski, Abraham Melnikov, Jacob Mishori, Michal Na'aman, Efrat Natan, Joshua Neustein, Lea Nikel, Moshe Ninio, Nora and Naomi, Ibrahim Nubani, Avshalom Okashi, Chana Orloff, Mordecai Pitkin, Sigal Primor, Ze'ev Raban, David Reeb, Reuven Rubin, Avi Sabah, Maria Saleh Mahameed, Porat Salomon, Hadas Satt, Shmuel Schlesinger, Ruth Schloss, Benno Schotz, Fatma Shanan, Rachel Shavit, Henry Shelesnyak, Yehiel Shemi, Michael Sgan Cohen, Pesach Slabosky, Sultana Souroujon, Jakob Steinhardt, Moshe Sternschuss, Sionah Tagger, Naama Tsabar, Igael Tumarkin, Aviva Uri, Gal Weinstein, Ruth Dorrit Yacoby, Shahar Yahalom, Yosef Zaritsky, Ben Zion
The exhibition is generously supported by Zila and Giora Yaron, Hava and Alfred Akirov, Tova and Sami Sagol, and Anonymous donation.
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