Art at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem

Saw a lot of great art in Israel, and took a lot of photos to share out here on my blog. This post has some from my trip to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Much of this is fairly contemporary, though some of it is a bit older ("Modern"). Some comments included with each photo – please let me know what you think, especially if you have details on related work.

This is a work by Raffi Lavie from 1969 called "Untitled." Yeah, more Modern than contemporary. It's acrylic, pencil, and collage on plywood. I love the stylistic connection to abstract expressionists and the collage work of those Paris guys... and there are hints of things that Basquiat later did in New York.

These next two paintings are from a special exhibit on the Fauves. The top one is a Kandinsky from 1908 called "Mountain Landscape with Village I"; the lower one is from Gabriele Münter, around 1910, called "Sunset over Staffelsee." I love the wild colors. The most well-known Fauve work is arguably Matisse's portrait of his wife, "Woman with a Hat."

I love Man Ray. And getting to see the back of "Indicateurs," which he hand-titled and signed, was a thrill for this art geek.

The Israel Museum has a great collection of Judaica, and one of my favorite pieces is this all-in-one set of ritual objects designed by Zelig Segal in 1983, entitled "Holiday Set." At the top is a Hanukkiah, there's a Havdalah set on the right, an etrog holder on the left, Shabbat candleholders at the bottom...

The last piece I'm sharing in this post is the view from inside James Turrell's "Space That Sees" from 1992 – possibly my favorite sculptural work of all time. One enters a big white box (20' square? 30'?) and looks up through an opening to watch the sky above. It's sculpture in reverse, almost. I see it as an exploration of how we frame the natural word to create art – painters and photographers try to capture moments, sculpture tries to replicate it... and this frames the source itself.