Vising the first Tel Aviv Crafts and Design Biennale at the Eretz Israel Museum this morning was a fresh exit from the realm of Pandemic-focused exhibitions. Seeking to comprehensively describe the current state of local design and crafts, the show includes works in ceramics, glass, fibers, metal, and other media. This Biennale represents the Museum’s mission of devoting to local material culture, ethnography, and folk art from antiquity to the present, and it grew out of the traditional biennales of ceramics, glass, and jewelry, regularly shown in the past decade.
The Eretz Israel Museum is a favorite. Situated on a 20-acre grounds in Ramat Aviv neighborhood in Northern Tel Aviv, it was established in the 50s when Israel was a young independent state. Composed of 15 beautifully-designed pavilions and installations, each is dedicated to such subjects, as glass, ceramics, and coins. The Museum was designed by brilliant German-born architect Werner Joseph Wittkover (1903-97), the younger brother of famed architectural historian Rudolf Wittkower, who settled in Palestine in the 30s. In an age when museums are becoming more global, more digital, more enormous, when the museum IS architecture and vice versa, there is something to say about the cozy and welcoming sense of familiarity that the Eretz Israel Museum preserves, making you feel ‘at home.’
Hundreds of artists are represented at the Biennale, many of whom were unfamiliar to me, some use craft in inventive ways. I was disappointed not to see any representation by Erez Nevi Pana and Shmuel Linski, two local designers whose work I find intriguing and relevant. Here are my selects, representing what I view as the most innovative and successful products in this show. More images will be added here next week.
Above: Porcelain by Dikla Moskowitz. Photography Hadar Sayfan.
The Eretz Israel Museum is a favorite. Situated on a 20-acre grounds in Ramat Aviv neighborhood in Northern Tel Aviv, it was established in the 50s when Israel was a young independent state. Composed of 15 beautifully-designed pavilions and installations, each is dedicated to such subjects, as glass, ceramics, and coins. The Museum was designed by brilliant German-born architect Werner Joseph Wittkover (1903-97), the younger brother of famed architectural historian Rudolf Wittkower, who settled in Palestine in the 30s. In an age when museums are becoming more global, more digital, more enormous, when the museum IS architecture and vice versa, there is something to say about the cozy and welcoming sense of familiarity that the Eretz Israel Museum preserves, making you feel ‘at home.’
Hundreds of artists are represented at the Biennale, many of whom were unfamiliar to me, some use craft in inventive ways. I was disappointed not to see any representation by Erez Nevi Pana and Shmuel Linski, two local designers whose work I find intriguing and relevant. Here are my selects, representing what I view as the most innovative and successful products in this show. More images will be added here next week.
Above: Porcelain by Dikla Moskowitz. Photography Hadar Sayfan.
Mika Leh Due, in molded felt, by Ayala Serfaty. Photo courtesy Studio Ayala Serfaty.
Lanceolate, by Ofir Zmudjak, in Ceramics, Glass, and 3D Print.
Sphere of Occurrences, by Lilach Visnavski, in Ceramics and Paper.
Charcoal Volumes, by Noam Dover and Michal Cederbaum, in Cast Glass.