Along with rain showers, sunshine, and short shorts, springtime everywhere brings a tide of outdoor art and design exhibits. One early bird exhibit can perhaps be taken as a sign of the season’s nascent arrival. Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design transformed Israel into its own outdoor art gallery from February 16 to 26 with the country’s largest-ever outdoor art show.
Bezalel asked its 1600 art and design students, spread among eight departments, to each contribute a piece of artwork to be reproduced and displayed on billboards distributed throughout Israel in cooperation will the advertising firm, Shalmor-Avnon-Amichay Y&R. In addition, an online gallery allowed people to see the artwork installed on site, documenting the city and street location of each project.
Bezalel, Israel’s leading art and design academy, calls the show the most ambitious and wide-ranging program it has ever produced, involving the maximum amount of faculty and students. The show is simultaneously a campaign for new students, with every poster stating, “Join the ranks of Bezalel graduates.” Like any marketing effort, the exhibition aims to raise awareness of the academy’s mission and to increase registration of new students. Appropriately, the billboards announce the school’s open house days, which continue until March 8.
“All of us at Bezalel are excited to be part of this bold project. We wanted to communicate to the public what a depth of talent Bezalel produces and what a wide range of disciplines and influences we cover,” says Bezalel Academy president and professor Arnon Zuckerman, “At the same time, Bezalel’s illustrious history and its position at the vanguard of Israeli art and design means that it is very much part of the fabric of the state of Israel. Therefore, it is fitting that we are showing the academy’s work throughout the country. We hope it will inspire future artists and designers of the finest caliber to join us at Bezalel,” he explains.
Bezalel was established in 1906 with the support of Theodor Herzl, known as the founder of modern Zionism, and calls itself the leading source of creative talent emerging from the Middle East, mixing pioneering state-of-the-art design methods with ancient techniques. The school’s scope of professional and artistic activities include workshops in the fields of industrial design, architecture, animation and video art, visual communications, fine art, photography fashion and jewelry, history and theory, and ceramics and glass. Some of these fields have seen changes and challenges in the past decades, and the school’s increased marketing and academic presence is a telling sign of the growing influence of designers from Israel in today’s contemporary scene.
The exhibition opened on February 16 and projects were featured for 10 days. For further information, go to www.bezalel.ac.il.
