The Tel Aviv Museum of Art recently opened a new exhibition entitled "The Tel Aviv Museum of Art Presents: Itself 2". The exhibition explores the history and development of Israeli art. The exhibition, curated by Ellen Ginton, spans nearly 100 years of Israeli and pre-state art culture and will run indefinitely giving visitors a deep view of Israeli art throughout the years. The exhibition will give visitors the opportunity to explore the art of Israel's earliest days, and see how it developed alongside, and was influenced by the country's vibrant, dynamic and colorful narrative. The exhibition explores three periods of creative development.


The Pioneers and National Modernism

Thirty years before the State of Israel was founded and until the 1967 war, Modernism and avant-garde styles were present and flourishing in the Israeli-Jewish art in the region as well as in Europe. Nationalism, social revolution and artistic innovation are concepts that coexisted at the time and often overlapped.


Post-Zionist Post-Minimalism

This part of the exhibition focuses on two phenomena of Israeli Art during 1967 and the three following decades: Post-Minimalism, inspired predominantly by North American art and the profound influence of the Zionist movement, shifting the emphasis towards cultural history.


Nahum Tevet, Narcissus II, 1981-1982 (reconstruction 2014), wood, iron, reconstructed through a donation from the David Berg Foundation, New York, 2014


Early 21st Century: Reductivism and Redundancy

Art with an emphasis on Minimalism and Maximalism; the size of the work no longer has a stylistic significance.

An additional element of the exhibition is dedicated to Post-Modernism and Feminism, presenting works by the first decisive generation of female artists of the 1970s.


Barak Ravitz, b. 1982, Chatzi Goren (Semicircle),, 2013 Digital prints, roll-up banners, Purchased through a donation from Voting for Art acquisition group, 2013