Two New Works for the Billy Rose Art Garden

The Museum has recently installed two new site-specific works by contemporary artists Mark Dion and Micha Ullman in its Billy Rose Art Garden.

 

New York artist Mark Dion’s work The Antiquarian Book Shop, 2008, is a life-scale book shop filled with hundreds of books and collectibles culled from various locations and cultures worldwide and across an impressive range of periods in time. Dion’s house-like structure is locked and not accessible, creating a kind of still-life motif within the dynamism of the Garden’s seven-acre setting. The work seeks to find connections between disparate peoples and moments in history and literature, revealing underlying commonalities of humankind and resonating both with the European tradition of the 16th–17th-century Wunderkammer, and with the Museum’s encyclopedic collections. Its special setting in the Garden, near works by such minimalist masters as Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd, creates yet another level of dynamic reflection about the nature of empty forms, as well as of those – such as Dion’s – that are filled with rich material content. The work was acquired through the New York Contemporary Art Acquisitions Committee of American Friends of the Israel Museum.

Rendering by Micha Ullman of his installation Equinox	Micha Ullman working inside his installation at noon on the vernal equinox – March 20 – as the sun’s rays entered the sculpture

Equinox, 2005–2009, an installation by internationally recognized Israeli artist Micha Ullman, is a subterranean void some five meters deep. The only component of the work that is visible above ground is a bench-like structure with a transparent top through which the viewer can observe his own shadow projected into the void below, mixed with the reflections of the sky in the installation’s glazed opening. Twice a year, at noon on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, a ray of light shines directly opposite a darkened entrance to a corridor creating a “door” of light. Through this subtle play of light, darkness, and reflection, Equinox creates a moment to consider both the cosmic and the personal. The completion of this commission coincided with the recent announcement of Micha Ullman’s receipt of the 2009 Israel Prize – the country’s most prestigious award – in recognition of his life’s work and his contribution to culture in Israel. Equinox was created in honor of Shoshana Cardin, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, by her children and grandchildren, and Lynn and Stacy Schusterman, USA; with additional support from Shirley and Frank Lowy, Sydney, Australia, in honor of Dov Gottesman’s 75th birthday; and the Barbara and Eugene Schwartz Contemporary Art Acquisition Endowment Fund.

Fischach Sukkah Restoration

The Museum’s treasured Fischach sukkah is to undergo restoration. The project, to be carried out by the laboratories of the Atelier Régional de Restauration in Bretagne, France, is being funded through the generosity of Alberto Deller, grandson of the original owners, and his wife Frida Klein-Deller, of Quito, Ecuador, in memory of their son, Pierre Philippe, and in honor of his children, Aaron and Natalie Deller. The richly-decorated hand-painted wooden sukkah, dating from the second half of the 19th century, was discovered in 1934 in the Deller family home in Fishach, southern Germany, and transferred to Israel at the outbreak of the Second World War. Originally in the collection of the Bezalel Museum, forerunner of the Israel Museum, it has been on permanent display since the Museum’s opening in 1965. The reconditioned sukkah will occupy a place of distinction in our renewed galleries for Jewish Art and Life, scheduled to be opened in 2010 following the campus renewal project.

XIII World Congress of the World Federations of Friends of Museums

The World Federation of Friends of Museums (WFFM) held its thirteenth triennial International World Congress in Jerusalem on September 21–26, 2008, hosted by the Israel Museum and its International Council. Organized by a team from the Israel Museum, led by Vice President for Development and International Relations Danny Ben-Natan, Treasurer of the WFFM at the time, the Congress drew close to 170 museum friends and volunteers from twenty-seven countries throughout the world. The 2008 Congress theme was “Relationships between Museums, Friends, and Volunteers.”

VIP Visits

Chief Curator-at-Large Yigal Zalmona (left) accompanies President of Italy Giorgio and Mrs. Clio Napolitano in the Shrine of the Book during their state visit to Israel in November 2008		US Governor of Minnesota and Mrs. Tim Pawlenty are accompanied at the Museum by Susan Strul, Coordinator of Donor Relations (center), during their official visit in December 2008
At the Shrine of the Book during the Austrian state visit on December 15, 2008, l. to r.: James Snyder; Dr. Claudia Schmidt, Austrian Minister for Education, Arts and Culture; Margit Fischer, wife of Austrian President Heinz Fischer; and Isaac Molho, IMJ Board Chairman and Honorary Consul of Austria in Israe		Miriam Malachi, Assistant Curator for Asian Art, Dr. Shugo Asano (left), director of the Yamato Bunkakan Museum in Nara, Japan, and an international authority on Japanese prints, and Dr. Yutaka Mino, Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s North America, examine rare prints from the IM’s Pins Collection in preparation for a program for Japanese national television on the late artist and collector Jacob Pins

       Jacob Pins, Poles in the Water, 1973

Hoexter Delegation Visits the Israel Museum

An official delegation from Hoexter, Germany, visited the Departments of Prints and Drawings and of Asian Art on March 8, 2009, in connection with the history of the late Israeli artist Jacob Pins. Pins, who was born in Hoexter in 1917 and died in Jerusalem in 2005, was a woodcut master and an expert collector of Japanese art. He was a longtime friend of the Museum and donated substantially to both departments, including over 140 of his own prints and drawings and a research library and collection of more than five hundred Asian sculptures, paintings, and prints.

New Projects in the Judaica and Jewish Ethnography Wing

The Judaica and Jewish Ethnography Wing has played a leading role in a recently established course on Judaica taught in the Department of Jewelry and Fashion at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Participating students receive part of their education at the Museum, viewing objects from our collections and receiving instruction from curators No’am Bar’am Ben-Yossef and Sharon Weiser-Ferguson. This year, the theme of the course was “Life Ceremonies – the Jewish Wedding.”

During the festival of Sukkot, the Wing participated in a project with the Avi Chai Foundation. As part of a sukkah model competition held at Beit Avi Chai in Jerusalem, the Wing displayed panels depicting sukkahs from our collections, and curator Rachel Sarfati lectured on sukkahs from different Jewish communities around the world.

Israel Museum Volunteers Organization

In November, the IMJ Volunteers Organization organized its annual trip for 180 of our volunteers, this year to the north of Israel, where the group visited Haifa University’s Hecht Museum and antiquities sites in Acre.

Welcoming the GA

The 2008 General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities of America – the GA – was held in Jerusalem in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary, a once in five years occurrence. On the final afternoon of the Assembly – November 19 – 220 participants arrived for a special open-house visit and guided tours of current exhibitions. All participants of the GA received complimentary membership to the Museum for the duration of the congress.