Master's Program in Fine Arts (M.F.A) Graduate Exhibition

Artists are not insulated from their environment; rather they are always influenced to some extent by the intellectual, moral and cultural climate of the time and place. These basic premises are further validated by the manner in which the Master's Program in Fine Arts at Bezalel Academy has been constructed over the past few years, as reflected in the focus given to local art, the admittance of students and lecturers from different backgrounds and in the program's new residence on Herzl Street. The students' individual studios are located on the border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa in a building that once housed a textile factory. In this culturally and socially diverse area, there is a connection between immigrants and locals. In this industrial neighborhood, everyday life takes place in close proximity to historical sites that hold great significance for different communities. The artists operate within this context, whether by conscious personal choice or not. All projects featured in this Graduate Exhibition are tinted with local colors, colors which have become bolder due to the ongoing global situation. This period has accentuated the importance of locality and the local element, emphasizing that which is found on our doorstep as opposed to that which is found overseas.

This year's Graduate Exhibition includes 19 bodies of work in different mediums: performance, photography, video, painting, sculpting, installation and sound. In a period when our world is reduced to the limits of our doorstep, this exhibition places emphasis on an in-depth movement, focusing on the geographical periphery where we live, instead of a spatial movement that searches for an imagined horizon which moves further away the more we advance towards it. Studio work had been relocated to our home environment, taking place either in our personal space or in nature that can be found within a limited radius only. Viewing this collection of works through the lens of the pandemic may suggest one distinct perspective, but the exhibition also offers broader, fascinating outlooks on the subject of location and locality.

Some of the works in this exhibition deal with socio-political issues that are directly related to definitions of identity, home, homeland, family history, local history and even immediately related to Tel Aviv's "backyard;" other works focus on the connection between the human body and the structural spaces we inhabit, the urban environment and nature. This exhibition also includes works that directly grapple with the consequences of the pandemic for the field of art and the status of exhibition spaces.

Prof. Dor Guez, exhibition curator and Head of the Master's Program in Fine Arts at Bezalel Academy.

Opening: 3 June 2021, 19:00

Closing: 19 June 2021

Herzl St. 119, Tel Aviv

Opening hours:

Tuesday-Thursday: 12:00-22:00

Friday: 10:00-16:00

Saturday: 12:00-22:00

Invitation