Nineteen artists from around the world have joined 20 Israeli artists for a two-week “ArtBnB” residency in Jerusalem, creating works around the clock in the public space and giving master classes and workshops.
A wandering exhibition on December 20 showcases all the products of the collaborative initiative based at three cultural centers in the heart of Jerusalem – HaMiffal, Beita and the Muslala Terrace on the fourth floor of the Clal Building commercial center.
The selected artists work in a variety of media: painting, sculpture, installation, cinema, sound, theatre, performance, photography, architecture, conceptual art, land art, interventions in the public space, and so on. Participants were chosen by an artistic committee that included the directors of the host cultural centers, and project managers.
“In recent years Jerusalem has experienced an artistic momentum. The ArtBnB project connects Jerusalem to the main artery of the global art scene, and gives artists from abroad the opportunity to live and work in Jerusalem, collaborate with local artists, and leave their mark on the public space around them,” said Shlomo Levy, head of the Jerusalem Municipality Youth Authority.
Participating artists from abroad are Anne Albagli (San Francisco), Michael Beitz (Boulder, Colorado), Francisco Baccaro (Lisbon), Monika Drożyńska (Krakow), Roman Ermakov (Moscow), Marina Fridman and Yuma Yanagisawa (Canada), Lola Gaynutdinova (Kharkov), Amirabbas Gudarzi (Vienna), Lenore Mizrachi-Cohen and Yasmin Gur (New York), Joaquín Jara (Barcelona), Katja Jug (Zurich), Ronnie Kommené (London), Chebet Lesan (Nairobi), Eileen Levinson (Los Angeles), Lieke van der Made (Amsterdam), Sascha Roesler (Zurich) and Octavi Serra (Girona, Spain).
Israeli participating artists are Noa Arad Yairi, Hadas Golan, Tomas Goldsmit, Gilad Grinberg, Daniel Nahmias, Ola Savchuk, Paul Taylor, Nir Artzi, Shem Barel, Hana Ben Haim Yulzeri, Yifat Shtainmetz Hirst, Amit Trainin, Anan Adnan Hamdan, Einat Amir, Galia Armeland, Dorian Levin, Daria Lior-Shoshani, Hadas Ofrat, Matan Pinkas and Tami Zeri.
ISRAEL21c spoke with Mizrachi-Cohen, who has been creating permanent painted murals to mark a pathway between the Beita municipal gallery on Jaffa Road and the historic Ades Syrian synagogue in the Nachlaot neighborhood.
“My family is Syrian Jewish, and as an artist and a traditional person I like to have that link between the two, using a visual language of Mizrachi [Eastern] countries,” she explains.
The project is an outgrowth of a wheat-paste work she did in Brooklyn with her sister, Grace Mizrachi, titled “My Heart is in the East and I am Standing at the Edge of the West,” taken from the writings of 11th century Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol.
“It’s about appreciating where you come from and referencing the past to inform the future,” says Mizrachi-Cohen.
She added that as a frequent visitor to Israel, “It’s always interesting to see Jerusalem through new eyes. Some of the other artists have never been here, and we all interact with the place differently.”
ArtBnB is a cooperative venture of HaMiffal, the Youth Authority in Jerusalem Municipality, the Jerusalem Development Authority and Eden.
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