Jerusalem art show to examine shift from routine to extreme
Starting July 22, the annual Manofim contemporary show will offer five days of exhibits at city’s galleries, on rooftops and in gardens
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
An art installation focused on memory and disappearance. A “sonic space” centered on the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer. A group exhibition examining the themes of belonging and ownership through local vegetation.
All of these will be highlights of an upcoming annual contemporary art festival in Jerusalem exploring how, in Israel’s present reality, routine life can feel extreme.
The festival, Manofim, now in its 17th year, will open on July 22 under the title “Extreme Point” and will run for five days. In a statement about the festival, Manofim’s founders and directors, Lee He Shulov and Rinat Edelstein, invite audiences to step into the gap between what has broken and is emerging.
“It’s a theme that reflects the reality we live in,” Shulov and Edelstein wrote in the statement. “It’s a moment where the routine has become extreme, and what was once exceptional is now the air we breathe. The festival embraces the belief that at the breaking point lies the potential for growth and a new language.”
The festival will be based in the neighborhood of Talpiot, where studios are interspersed between car dealerships and garages, and will open with a show by Orphaned Land, an Israeli heavy metal band. The concert, as well as a “live and improvised audio-visual experience” by twin artists Guy and Neta Moses, will be staged at Bustana, a new venue located on the rooftop of Talpiot’s Artists’ Studios.
Along with galleries and artists’ studios, the festival’s exhibitions will be shown in alternative spaces throughout the city, such as rooftops and gardens, where the public will be encouraged to engage with the art.
This year’s exhibitions include “The Jackal,” a large-scale video and painting installation on memory, image, and disappearance by Efrat Gal-Nur and Alona Friedberg at the Hazira Theater. Another featured artwork is “Root of the Matter,” a group exhibition at the Artists’ Studios curated by Yarden Stern that examines, according to the festival description, how vegetation reflects the past and future of the local population, as well as the “symbolic and political roles of trees, flowers, and wild plants.”
“Kaddish” at the Koresh 14 Gallery is a sonic installation created by Jerusalem-based composer and sound artist Shaul Dahan, who will create an “ecstatic sonic space” that includes texts of religious prayers such as the Mourner’s Kaddish. “Bliss” at Ticho House, meanwhile, is the latest video art installation from Meirav Heiman and Ayelet Carmi, depicting a dystopian scene of women living together on a column in an abandoned building.
The festival will offer guided tours of the participating galleries and entry into artists’ studios, as well as performances, workshops, and creative stations geared toward children at the Artists’ Studios.
Other musical performances will include rock musician Roy Reick launching his new album, Idit Mintzer leading a musical-poetic evening at Beit Ticho, and the Drag De Paz show featuring Gal De Paz and some of Israel’s leading drag queens.
The genre-bending trio Tatran will close the festival with an instrumental performance alongside a string quartet.
For more information and tickets, go to the Manofim website.
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