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Art
a 20-acre plot that has been impressively landscaped
by the renowned Japanese American artist, Isamu
Noguchi. In the garden of semicircular earth-and-stone
embankments is a 100-piece sculpture collection, which
contains both classical and modern European, American,
and Israeli works, such as Rodin, Zorach, Henry Moore,
Picasso, Maillol, and Channa Orloff.
Not to be missed is the Edmond and Lily Safra Fine
Arts Wing which reflects a wide-range works of art from
across the ages in Western and non-Western cultures,
notably European art, modern and contemporary art,
Israeli art, the art from Africa and the Americas as well
as Asian art.
Tim Hursley, Courtesy of the Israel Museum
The wing presents a wide range of exhibitions
annually. One that particularly attracted the writer was
an exhibition by the South African and internationally
acclaimed artist, William Kentridge. The exhibition of
some 100 works by the Johannesburg artist, is running
through to mid-June, explores five major themes that
have engaged the artist over the past three decades
such as colonial oppression and social conflict, loss
and reconciliation, and the ephemeral nature of both
personal and cultural memory.
“The Israel Museum has been committed to the work
of William Kentridge for a long time, sensing a strong
The Inbal Jerusalem Hotel
Spring-Summer 2011
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resonance between many of his dominant subjects and
issues which are central to the ethos of Israel’s existence
and to the social and cultural complexities that are
pervasive in Israel today,” said director, James S. Snyder.
Center Stage
Positioning the Israel Museum in the centre of the art
world was clearly in director Snyder’s mind when he
invited some of the world’s leading museum directors
as part of the international tourism conference in
Jerusalem in March. They included the directors of New
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, the Van
Anish Kapoor’s ‘Turning the World Upside Down Jerusalem’ and installed last year with the reopening of the
renovated Museum, the hourglass-shaped reflective sculpture realizes Teddy Kollek’s vision of a Jerusalem
which merges the heavenly with the earthly.
Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Chicago Institute of
Art and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.
With the intention of the conference to place Jerusalem
at the center of the world tourism map, the high-profile
attendance of some of the leading museum heads in
the art world is an affirmation of no longer the growing
but the established international stature of the Israel
Museum.
If you haven’t visited before, it’s a must. If you have
been, than as the Chicago tourist advised, “visit again.”