Aliyah Diary 20: Tel Aviv Art Museum

by tostien · December 5, 2024

Article Outline:

Introduction
First impressions
Don’t put literal trash in an art museum
The good stuff
Some more unique stuff
Tribute to the Hostages
More Photographs
On my way out
Please comment

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Introduction

The time came to visit somewhere North of Ben Gurion airport for the first time since I moved to Israel. To the right of me are secular communities. To the left of me is one of the most religious communities. (I can turn around if it helps your OCD.) I feel equally uncomfortable in any of them as an introvert pretending to be an extrovert.

In another middle, halfway between the center of Judaism (Jerusalem) and the center of Hellenism (Tel Aviv), the famous struggle between the two put Modiin firmly on the Jewish history map as concertized in the holiday of Chanukah. In one are towering stone walls hundreds or thousands of years old in Jerusalem, and in the other are miniature replicas of high European culture made by none other than mixed-message-named Helena Rubinstein. It is poetically obvious to state that I live in Modiin, living between these two cultures, so I won’t bother.

Helena’s miniature recreations now sit in the Tel Aviv art museum, one building over from an opera performing Greek tragedies. On the day of my visit the Greek tragedy was Oedipus, which goes something like this (again, “something like…”): Judah, now going by “James”, kills his father and goes blind. I wonder if there’s a PBS kids version?

Like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art has almost as many wings sponsored by Jews and almost as many visitors wearing yarmulkes. “oop – I found another religious Jew!”

First impressions

After deciding it was worth spending an hour 10 minutes in the car to travel 25 miles rather than figure out the train, I got a kick out of Tel Aviv’s stated liberalism in this parking lot art:

They kindly let a religious Jew on board – five seats behind Rosa Parks and two seats behind smoking octopus-man. Abutted against a blind woman wearing a seashell hat, red beard (with white peyos – or wind socks?) has to violate both his physical health breathing in second hand smoke and his spiritual health looking at a woman … though I guess he could just be staring at her sea shell, so whatever. At least no one notices that you’re not paddling, red beard.

Now – to the woman screaming her political views in the front – no one cares what you think. Shut up and row instead of making the aboriginal “woman of color” do your work in the name of “equality” while your “liberal” balloon floats away with hot air. At least Mohammad on a ridiculously shaped stand up paddle board going nowhere gets to breathe fresh air on water without an oil slick.

Lest you not be convinced of the political leanings of the museum, compare these two works of art in the same section and tell me what not so subliminal message you come away with where one boat has the secular Zionists facing forward, standing like Washington crossing the Delaware, and looking at you (and … whatever Ahad Ha’am is doing) while the religious boat is more reminiscent of a slave ship with men standing so low that their lower halves disappear into the hull. These mostly faceless men have their backs towards you and, correct me if I’m wrong, there is zero depiction of the middle – something between secular Zionism and religious anti-Zionism. At least in Haredi circles they won’t bother to create subliminal messages about secular Jews – they just pretend they don’t exist. Well, it’s logically consistent. Don’t scream “equality” when you don’t mean it.

Don’t put literal trash in an art museum

Art museums should be for art. Too many have literal trash (MIT museum) and poop on a stick (Museum of Modern Art). Now, this museum has plenty of good stuff though you’re not making a good first impression with this:

What a bunch of rubbish.

Next, if I could draw it when I was in 3rd grade, it doesn’t belong in an art museum:

Printing a texture from Photoshop also does not justify taking up more square footage than an American mansion. There were walls and walls of these in one unsurprisingly empty gallery:

The good stuff

I was ready to walk out after about that much though this is still Israel, after all. You have to keep looking. The lack of map or labels shouldn’t deter you … the good stuff is all in the basement for … safety? Couldn’t tell you why.

The action in the museum was in the “real art” section – mostly impressionist paintings from Pissarro and people of that kind. Droves of senior citizens listened to lectures here and the history / information they give is vis a vis the Jews – for instance, this is a sort of plaque you won’t see in an non-Jewish art museum:

Turns out Monet, Pissarro, Degas, Cezanne, and Renoir had opinions about the Dreyfus affair! I had no idea there was a connection. Monet was always my favorite – good job retaining that status, Monet.

I do want to first preface with Chagall’s work is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem which is a much, much larger museum – in Tel Aviv they do have a small collection of Jewish impressionist works in addition to the ‘standard’ Dutch and French. For example, this one pained by Jakob Nussbaum in 1906, “Young Maiden in the Meadow”. Born in Germany, Nussbaum moved to Israel where he died in Afula in 1936.

Here’s one I like to call, “Stand for Points of Versailles”:

Some more unique stuff

There is a huge sculpture installation … or … it’s a lot of chains suspended multiple floors … created by some guy named Mohamed. It’s not a big deal to include someone named Mohamed – it’s included with the rest. Had he had peyos? Back of the boat with you.

Click on the right arrow … suffice to say, it’s hard to photograph. It was really cool though.

Then there are these unlabeled prints on the wall by Moshe Hoffman. They are Holocaust related … here’s my favorite one, linked to another website … https://museum.imj.org.il/artcenter/includes/item.asp?id=283339

They are stomach turning.

I like how he puts halos around Jews in concentration camps, as Catholics depict their saints. I took a few more pictures though not for here.

In the gift shop they sell $125 fly swatters … or back scratchers? Whatever it is, I don’t think I’d use it as a menorah even if labeling it as such allows you to charge 10x:

Tribute to the Hostages

Outside the museum in a central square in Tel Aviv is the “mother of all hostage encampments”. Tents from the Nova music festival, where the largest number of Jews were killed on October 7, 2023, are there along with what’s left of pitas being eaten, a piano owned by a hostage for playing of sad music and a display “not suitable for children” which means also not suitable for me.

The tents are manned 24 hours a day – in this two minute clip, a man talks about the murders in the Jewish villages near Aza [Gaza]. With this passing comment to how religious-oriented places are typically centered around communal tables rather than the secular music festival, this experience was comparable to visiting a shiva house where people are grieving the loss of family. Note what he says about religious and secular coming together in a time of tragedy.

Here’s some piano playing – remember, this is a piano of one of the hostages – bird chirping is an extra:

More Photographs

Uneaten bread from the Nova festival
Piano of a hostage
Empty chairs at empty tables
Unsafe for children

On my way out

The locale isn’t big on restaurants and of those there, I could not find one kosher so I bought some juice and pre-packaged bird seed smashed into cracker-shaped slices. It was good. Trying to speak only Hebrew as much as possible failed again – and this time not because of an Israeli who wanted to practice English. No, he said, “here you go, man” in a surfer voice.

“How do you say that in Hebrew?”

He shrugged and said, “b’vak ha shah.” No, not the same.

Aliyah Diary 20: Tel Aviv Art Museum

Introduction

First impressions

Don’t put literal trash in an art museum

The good stuff

Some more unique stuff

Tribute to the Hostages

More Photographs

On my way out

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