This past October, Artis presented the first in a series of trips to Israel introducing international art curators and writers (including Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media, Museum of Modern Art, NY; Charmaine Picard, US Associate Editor, The Art Newspaper; James Trainor, US Editor, frieze magazine; and Polly Staple, Editor at Large of frieze magazine, London) to artists, museum directors, curators, gallerists, writers and collectors based in Israel. The group traveled to Jerusalem for a tour of the Old City, the Israel Museum with Director James Snyder and Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, and to see the first Herzliya Biennial organized by Herzliya Museum Director Dalia Levin and curator Joshua Simon, and to Um El Fahem Arab-Israeli art gallery with Director Saeed Abu Shakra and artist Sharif Waked.

The trip featured studio visits with Michal Rovner at her farm house and studio in Kfar Shmuel, Sigalit Landau in Jaffa, who was preparing for her solo show at Berlin’s Kunst Werke, Adi Nes, Guy Zagursky, Hila LuLu Lin (see also: http://www.hilalululin.com/) and Hannan Parach (an Israeli and Palestinian artist couple), David Reeb, Michal Halfman, Sharon Yaari, Miri Segal, Gal Weinstein, and more.  Other private tours in Tel Aviv were arranged with Ellen Ginton, Curator of Israeli Art at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Director Moti Omer, Sergio Edelstein, Director of the Contemporary Center for Art, Tel Aviv; and Galit Eilat, Director of from the Digital Art Lab, Holon, in addition to nightly dinners with artists, writers and collectors.

The mix of architecture was a wonderful surprise to many, from the old port city of Jaffa to the abundant examples of Bauhaus buildings in Tel Aviv, the "White City"  - the only city in the world to house such a large collection of buildings designed in this style since the 1930s and now designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.  It is in this neighborhood around Rothschild Boulevard that many of the city’s established galleries are situated including Somer, Noga, and Braverman.

For a more complete list of contemporary art galleries and museums, please visit our Israeli Art Guide.  Many thanks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their support of this trip.