Hi there,
Every fall, Manofim – Jerusalem Contemporary Art Festival launches Jerusalem’s exhibition season. On October 29th 2019, Manofim will open for the 11th time, for five consecutive days and nights of art events and exhibitions throughout Jerusalem.
This year Manofim – Jerualem Contemporary Art Festival presents a fascinating program with a range of one-off art events and original performances, including: dozens of new exhibition opening in galleries and art venues throughout the city, a central exhibition in Bikur Cholim Hospital, Jerusalem Art Conference at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, the first performance of Public Movement in Jerusalem, Cinema Balash – a new program that brings together cinema, art, and performance at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, creative workshops and special activities for children, tours in hidden places around Jerusalem, individual sessions and artist talks, guests from Indonesia, Switzerland, USA and Lithuania a program of the finest original musical performances and more.
WHEN: Oct 29th - Nov 2nd 2019
Above: The Operating Theater at Bikur Cholim Hospital, 1900-1930. Photographer: Tsadok Bassan. Courtesy of the Ben-Zvi Institute.
Manofim exposes to the general public the original and vibrant artmaking in Jerusalem, with all its complexities, and in collaboration with communities and artists from a wide range of sectors working in the city.
Manofim – Jerusalem Contemporary Art Festival was established 11 years ago and is run to this day by two Jerusalem-based artists: Lee he Shulov and Rinat Edelstein, who throughout the year work to promote local artists and art in Jerusalem. This is an independent grassroot initiative that involves dozens of galleries and cultural institutions and hundreds of artists from different disciplines.
HIGHLIGHTS of 2019 MANOFIM - JERUSALEM CONTEMPORARY ART FESTIVAL EVENTS:
Central exhibition – Nurse, Nurse at Bikur Cholim Hospital, Jerusalem
Festival opening night – Tuesday October 29th from 19:00, with the performance Rescue by Public Movement.
This year, Manofim Festival will open with the central exhibition “Nurse, Nurse,” in Bikur Cholim Hospital at the heart of Jerusalem.
The hospital opened in the mid-19th century to meet the need for health services for the Jewish Yishuv. Thanks to its strategic location in the city center, the hospital provided critical medical care to many casualties, and its fascinating history exemplifies the radical transformations that have taken place in the Israeli healthcare system. As a non-government supported hospital it faced financial difficulties and in 2007 was eventually sold to business tycoon Arkadi Gaydamak. In December 2012, the hospital’s operation was handed over to the management of Shaare Zedek Medical Center, while most of the wards in the hospital were closed. In 2015, Gaydamak sold the hospital complex to Taaman Real Estate, and it is currently leased to Shaare Zedek Medical Center. The real estate corporation wishes to change the designation of the building from public use to a mixed urban area, which will include huge buildings and commercial uses.
Today, the main building of the hospital is deserted, and Ziv Building (formerly the German Hospital), which is still in use, houses mainly birthing rooms, a neonatal intensive care unit, and a maternity ward. This space will host the exhibition “Nurse, Nurse,” that will set out to focus on a space where a call for help is heard, between the desire to be healed and the challenges it faces as a result of medical, financial, bureaucratic, or personal circumstances. The artworks will examine the question of the effectiveness of recovery: From the most intimate and personal place of the individual patient, through the strict protocols and guidelines imposed in medical institutions, to the possibility of healing and recovering crumbling institutions in the face of economic processes and overpowering real estate ventures.
Featuring: Nelly Agassi, Reut Asimini, Sharon Balaban, Aya Ben Ron, Chen Cohen, Hadassa Goldvicht, Michal Heiman, Moran Lee Yakir, Karam Natour, Public Movement, Tomer Sapir, Ran Slapak, Jasmin Vardi, Gideon Gechtman, Andi Arnovitz, Yuri Kuper and The Testube Group: Tali Kayam, Elinor Sahm, Michal Roth.
Curators: Rinat Edelstein and Lee He Shulov Associate curator and producer: Hadassa Cohen
The exhibition will be accompanied by guided tours with the scholar Nir Ortal – a journey in the trail of historical hospitals on HaNevi’im Street, and by special events throughout the exhibition including talks with artists and intellectuals who explore this theme. Closing: December 27th, 2019
Trick – Jerusalem Art Conference #4, the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
The Jerusalem Art Conference is a joint initiative of Manofim and Erev Rav and Harama magazines. Trick is a surprising ruse used in order to achieve a certain goal. The topics that will be discussed in the conference include: art censorship and tricks for coping with it; technological and anti-technological tricks in art; the spectrum between truth and illusion; art as an economic or political trick; economics and politics as an artistic trick; art as an expression of identity tactics; art tricks and legal tricks. The conference will also feature the video art collection in its debut screening in Israel titled “Plot,” curated by Rotem Linial, and will close with a musical performance by Magi Hikri featuring AvevA.
Participants: The conference will feature two international guests – the Lithuanian artist Akvilė Anglickaitė and from Switzerland !Mediengruppe Bitnik who engaged in hacking as an artistic hacking. Artists Yasmin Caspin, Ronnie Karfiol, Carmel Barna Brezner and Emi Sfard, architect and scholar Elad Horn, curators Irit Carmon Popper, Ilanit Konopny & Meital Aviram, choreographer Anat Katz, fashion photographer Malkiella Benchabat, scholar and photographer Prof. Dana Arieli, artists Or Ariely, Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo, Gabriel S Moses & Guy Aon, art scholar Dr. Ronit Milano, composer Dganit Elyakim, adv. Nurit Asher Fenig and more.
Conference curators: Rinat Edelstein, Ronen Eidelman, Yonatan Amir Producer: Aviv Peter
The Mixer – Manofim Festival Musical Program A series of site-specific musical events that mix art and music, East and West, old and new. Musical director: Ram Mizrahi Spinoza (RAMZY)
Magi Hikri featuring AvevA Wednesday 30.10.19 at 21:00, the Van Leer Institute A performance inspired by the sounds of Hikri’s childhood in Kerem HaTeimanim, from Yemenite prayers to classical Iraqi music. Original materials and adaptations to the greatest Arab singers. Featuring AvevA, a singer-songwriter who combines traditional Ethiopian sounds and soul.
Uriel Herman featuring Liron Amram Thursday 31.10.19 at 20:00, Ticho House Uriel Herman has been taking over the world with his piano, combining original pieces with covers of David Bowie and Mordechai Zeira’s songs. Herman will feature Liron Amram, who mixes Arab violin and Yemenite flavor with pop, rock, disco, and electronic music.
ANGATA featuring Gili Yalo in collaboration with Mama Africa Festival Friday 1.11.19 at 13:00, Meir Davidov Garage Angata (Itay Reznik and Omer Keinan) synthesizes African harmonies, sounds and percussion with electronic music. The show features Gili Yalo who creates groove adaptations to Amharic songs in a contemporary, opulent, and intelligent production. The event will open with a West African dance workshop accompanied by drummers, led by Yael Sharoni – a teacher and one of the prominent figures in the Israeli scene.
Musica VeSheket’s Pulkes featuring Eyal Talmudi Saturday, 2.11.19 at 21:30, Jerusalem Cinematheque Pulkes plays world music under the direction of Eyal Talmudi – a sax, clarinet, bagpipes, and piano player, composer and musical producer. Together, they take the listeners on a journey that begins with Bulgarian tunes, continues with Greek and Hasidic harmonies, and culminates with Italian rhythms.
Cinema Balash Cinema Balash is an experimental screening space set up in New York by the artist Rotem Linial, bringing together film, performance, and visual art. The project explores and celebrates the moving image in all its forms and the common viewing experience in the movie theater. As part of Manofim, Cinema Balash will move to Jerusalem with events at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the Van Leer Institute. Wednesday, 30.10,2019, 17:00
Plot Historical and contemporary video art and that explores the meaning of the word “Plot” and the formation of narratives. Thursday, 31.10.2019, 21:00
Deep Dive | Performative screening In collaboration with the Israeli Film Archive at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. Artists and historians will shed light on a historical film during the screening, illuminating and drawing attention to hidden facets in the original footage. Friday, 1.11.2019, 21:00
Typologies | Synopsis: Blood, Sweat, and Tears The basic elements that comprise a cinematic genre. Artists were invited to choose a scene that relates to the expression “blood, sweat, and tears.” The resulting film becomes a synopsis of cinema as a whole: fight scenes (blood), sex scenes (sweat), and crying scenes (tears). Saturday, 2.11.2019, 21:00
Pairings | Festival Closing Event Scenes from films selected by artists and presented as a multi-participant performance. The scenes, taken from the history of cinema, are accompanied by an added element chosen by the participating artists.
International Manofim Guests This year Manofim hosts five international guests who will offer a glimpse into projects and artworks created around the world. Three of these guests stay in Jerusalem as part of LowRes Jerusalem, Art Cube – Artists’ Studios international artist residency, curated by Maayan Sheleff.
Haryo Hutomo | Indonesia | Now, What We Eat Is Arranged by Whom? An artist-curator who explores the correlation between science and social politics. Hutomo will carry out a speculative action centered around the consumption of GM food as the product of global capitalism. He will set up a laboratory-popup restaurant that serves food that was purportedly sourced from various parts of the world, blurring the line between art and science.
Irene Agrivina Widyaningrum | Indonesia | RAMU (Concoction) An open system advocate, technologist, artist, and educator. Widyaningrum will set up a living kitchen laboratory in Jerusalem, examining how people obtain plant resources to meet their cultural and physical needs. The local uses of natural substances contribute to the development of an “identity,” a key concept in global political struggles. This artistic research will seek the politics of ethnobotany in Jerusalem.
Mediengruppe Bitnik! | Switzerland | Hacking as an Artistic Practice Mediengruppe Bitnik! are Switzerland-born and Berlin-based Carmen Weisskopf and Domagoj Smoljo. Their work focuses on the Internet and the use of hacking as an artistic strategy. Their works turn a spotlight towards the ecologies shaped around bots and algorithms in technological platforms.
Another guest is the Lithuanian artist Akvilė Anglickaitė who works with photography and moving image. In her works, she explores the possibilities of photographic imagery, the margins of storytelling, and the poetics of sound. “Ocean,” presented in its Israeli debut during Manofim Festival, was generated by an algorithm. There is nothing real about it. Just lines of code. However, at least for a while it makes viewers believe that what they see actually exists.
Rotem Linial with the project Cinema Balash (see more details above).
Events in Jerusalem’s galleries Manofim Festival opening party at the Mazkeka, sounds and photos at Vision Gallery with cellist and composer Rali Margalit, a conversation about wildflowers and insects in Israeli art at Ticho house with curator Tamar Manor-Friedman, culture scholar Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld, and author Prof. Dror Burstein, Goddess Frequencies’ Ritual at Beita with artist Shai Zakai who will lead a healing frequency walk ritual around her work Goddess of the Valley. UDU drums show with musicians Yitzhak Attias and Oren Fried accompanied by a performance- Rustle by Shani Reches and Binya Reches at HaCubia, and more.
Artist’s Appointment The public is invited to register for intimate one-on-one sessions with Jerusalem’s artists at Art Cube Artists’ Studios, this year surrounding the subject of “Dead End” For full details about Artist’s Appointment please visit Manofim website. MiniCranes Manofim Festival art events and workshops for families Weekend events for children and their parents – interactive tours of the exhibitions called “Mini Look,” art workshops led by artists, picnic, African dance workshop, detective and mystery solving tour at the mysterious Nora gallery and more.
New Exhibitions at Manofim Jerusalem’s Contemporary Art Festival
Art Cube Artists' Studios Zaum Attack | Nino Biniashvilli Curator: Hadas Glazer Nino Biniashvili uses the term “Zaum Attack” to describe her experience of grappling with the significance of language as an immigrant – the new, foreign language, as well as the mother tongue. The exhibition features experimental illustration works based on “Zaum” – the language invented by Russian avant-garde artists, translating the challenges of language, identity, and migration into a series of visual representations, and illustrating the abyss of meaning created by the loss of migration.
Artist Wall | Yael Serlin Hosts Maya Israel An intergenerational dialogue that touches on the impact of vanishing crafts on artists Yael Serlin and Maya Israel – from lithographic printing and photography to hand-drawn graphic and tanning leather, passed on from father to daughter. How were these preserved (or altered) and how are they manifested in their art.
Beita Gallery The 11th Sibyl Artists: Fatima Abu Roomi, Noa Arad Yairi, Yael Bartana, Michal Heiman, Oryan Galster Oren, Vered Nissim, Shai Zakai Curator: Avital Naor Wexler Ten sibyls, pagan prophetesses, prophesized in the ancient world. In Christianity and in the history of art, the sibyls were compared to the Hebrew prophets and were associated with nature, intuition, a clear and extensive vision, and exceptionally long lives. This exhibition seeks to discover the eleventh sibyl, and foretell a contemporary feminine prophecy that naturally relates to the subjects of gender and feminism, but also to ecology, healing, religion, and culture. Alongside these, it wishes to add a broad universal dimension, perhaps even spiritual, to the feminist expression.
HaMiffal Artist Room | Zvi Tolkovsky Curator: Itamar Hammerman Zvi Tolkovsky’s exhibition is the outcome of a six-week residency in the artist room at HaMiffal. The open room offers a glimpse behind the curtain of an artwork in progress, and summons interactions between the artist, the audience, and HaMiffal’s community. In his work process, Tolkovsky collected both physical and conceptual materials, discovering in them statements and artistic practices that resonate with his own world, and with the intergenerational encounter with the artists and visitors in the place.
Vila Contemporary Art Gallery The Way To Health | Tamar Nissim Curator: Gili Zaidman-Galim The Way to Health is the second in the trilogy, in which Tamar Nissim explores the structuring of the Jewish nation’s values, and how it unwrapped the Yemenite, the East, and the Balkans Children Affair. The exhibition is focused on hygiene education during the British Mandate in Palestine, which was mostly directed at women and children. Nissim examines how hygiene was used as an indication of the quality of the collective group and created an exclusion, or possibility, not necessarily accomplished, to be considered a civilized person.
Hacubia - Place for Art Rustle Artists: Noam Clumeck, Nadav Drukker, Alon Gil, Batya Gil Margalit, Gur Inbar, Cecilia Lind, Binya Reches, Shani Reches, Rachel Rothman Garji, Meira Una, Ronen Yamin Curators: Cecilia Lind, Dan Orimian Eleven ceramic and glass artists come together in one space and create a world inspired by nature and its basic components and by the manner it is reflected in man and his beliefs, in the form of heaven and hell, astrology and science. A fine yet strong thread passes through the various objects, like a cobweb that can be detected only occasionally, in the light of intuition. The ceramic vessel is the beating heart, the Rustle sets all things in motion.
Nora Gallery Reuvenzahavi@noragallery: Reuven Zahavi Curator: Dina Hanoch In the historical house of the Nora gallery, Reuven Zahavi presents a site-specific exhibition created for the intimate space of the gallery. The installation focuses on paintings and manipulated and painted domestic objects: second-hand cooking pots, engraved Teflon pans, disposable plastic plates and souvenirs. The gaze at the other, as well as the other’s perspective, are the key principles that lead visitors through the exhibition. Is a neutral, non-stereotypical, and uncoded perception of the other conceivable.
The Art Gallery of David Yellin Sama’ana | Zaudito Yosef-Seri Curator: Nava T. Barazani The artist Zaudito Yosef-Seri, whose works explore her Ethiopian origins, wishes to examine whether after all these years, her intensive preoccupation with black presence in a white environment is still her own doing, or is she committed to the subject due to how she is defined by others. The works featured in Sama’ana investigate whether this focus is binding, flattening, and blurs the gamut of other identities she carries within her without allowing them to be heard.
Hamiklat Le'Omanut Magnum Opus | Jared Bernstein Curator: Noa Lea Cohn Jared Bernstein returned to painting after twenty years – long enough to recently prepare a corpus of completely different new works. In a series of monumental, expressive paintings that resonates with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s works, Bernstein describes a long, painful, and real emotional process mixed with cautious optimism and healthy humor. His process reflects the liminal place of the Jewish artist: a place found between cultures and worlds, aware of them and chooses them all.
Vision, Neil Folberg Gallery Enigma Artists: Ruth Bernhard, Paul Caponigro, Jennifer Schlesinger Curator: Neil Folberg Enigma exhibits works by three artists who explore the space between questions and answers. Ruth Bernhard’s work utilizes a Surrealist visual. Paul Caponigro’s photographs have a deep quality that reveals the essence of his subjects. Both are iconic American artists who have been represented by Vision since 1982. Jennifer Schlesinger uses vintage processes to express visual metaphors about the natural world.
Jerusalem Print Workshop Lithography Room | Working / Space Artists: Tirza Freund, Liliane Klapisch, Uriel Miron, Sharon Poliakine, Naftali Rakouzin, Nomi Tan`nhauser Curator: Yair Talmor The artist’s work environment has always been a common theme in art, especially in painting and drawing. Going out of one’s studio into the print workshop is usually a critical change in the artist’s ways of working. Instead of the familiar and intimate space, the artist is forced to work in a different space, with the help of the master-printers in preparing the print plates and in the many printing trials. Thus, it is no wonder that many artists have chosen to describe this strange environment as a new theme in their work.
Marie Gallery And it was evening and it was morning Artists: Alon Even Paz, Hadassah Berry, Rony Barot, Miri Garmizu, Yoel Gilon, Nahum Melzer, Rina Nir Ezroni, Riva Pinsky Awadish, Alejandro Goldberg, Chana Cromer, Meir Reuven (Zalevsky), Uri Rausher, Shlomo Serry Curator: Liav Mizrahi
“And it was evening and it was morning” – This combination of words summarizes each day of Creation in the story of Genesis. Six days were for creating, and the seventh day was for rest. This exhibition begins “in the evening” in chaos, destruction, darkness, in uncharted territories, and continues to the morning, which represents examination, observation, discernment, insight, and comprehension of the night’s events. The exhibition recognizes that the stories of Creation are built on myths and universal archetypes, and that they offer a broad spectrum for creative interpretation.
Azrieli Gallery The Seer and the See Artists: Meydad Eliyahu, Zohar Gotesman, Tamar Getter, Eti Levi, Adva Matar, Kineret Noam, Adi Kamelgaren, Rachel Frumkin Curators: Tal Schwartz, Roie Ravitzky With the early settlement outside of the city wall, “the street of the Prophets” was considered the backstreet to Jaffa Road, housing foreign consulates, hospitals, and private estates. The exhibition explores the tension that still lingers in the geographical environs of the Gallery, between the king’s authority and the prophet’s sometimes challenging speech, focusing on the timeless alternative the prophets’ way offers the king’s regime.
Agripas 12 Seamstress of Heartbeats! | Mazal Carmon Curator: Orna Noy Lanir In this series of works, exhibited here for the first time, the artist Mazal Carmon contemplates cyclicality and erosion processes in nature. Using a unique method of sewing together sheets of paper that have been dyed, burned, and laundered, among others, and in laborious excess that pushes the limits of the material, Carmon creates uncanny images that resemble organic tissue, inhabiting the grotesque margin between life and decay, between the natural and the fabricated.
The Photography Gallery in memory of Yossi Nachmias, Hadassah Academic College Point Cloud Artists: Guy Aon, Maya Ben David, Ariel Caine, Moshe Caine, Eliraz Eitam and Nadav Goren, Talia Janover, Yuval Naor, Neil Nenner and Avihai Mizrahi, Shabtai Pinchevsk Curators: Galit Shvo and Doron Altaratz Historically, there are meaningful gaps between photographic processes and design process. Over the last few decades, there have been more and more collaborations between these two fields through the use of advanced technologies. This exhibition is the outcome of such collaboration between the departments of Photographic Communication and Industrial Design at Hadassah Academic College. The exhibition presents projects that focus on 3D photography, information, or digital design-based imaging technologies.
The Terrace of Muslala Old & New Material | Dorian Levin Curator: Matan Israeli There is no end to this exhibition, beginnings there are plenty. It is crucial not to close anything – to leave all your options open. In the exhibition: paper, Bristol board, clay, glass, copper, and fire. Paintings, sculptures, and pottery.
TICKETS: Full program and tickets are available on Manofim Festival's English Website.
Best, Talma
P.S. You can see some of my related trip posts in the strip below. Also, if you're interested in travel-related offers, you're welcome to view my 'best deals' page. Subscribers also have 'members only' benefits such as my updated events bulletin. To subscribe go here.
Disclaimer: The blog may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through these links, I will receive a small percentage of the profits at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Israel-Best-Trips.com