At the Tefen Museum - "Print Time"

 

 

When visiting the marvelous Western Galilee in Northern Israel, a stop at the Tefen Open Art Museum (at the Tefen Industrial park campus) may well be worth your time.

A group of fifty Israeli multigenerational artists collaborated in a joint effort to share with the public their extensive work in the particular field of Printing and Etching.

Two major Israeli Printmaking Workshops stand behind this unique show: the Jerusalem Print workshop (founded in 1974 and directed by Arik Kilemnik) and the Gottesman Etching Center, Kibbutz Cabri (founded in 1993 and directed by Ofra and Binji Raif).

In this spacious area, the various original works are presented in an uncommon manner.

"Print Time" (curators: Ruthi Ofek and Irena Gordon, October 2013 – May 2014) is a mixed and playful manifestation of all major Printing and Etching disciplines and techniques that have been created for some decades now in Israel.

The somewhat informal and made familiar layout (i.e. drawers, pillars, niches, etc.) is nonetheless a serious and profound portrayal of extensive research and intent to spotlight a lively and imaginative ongoing field of creation amongst Israeli Artists - an active one which hasn't received a lot of public attention over the years.

In order to find and observe the varied 120 prints which are on display either by name of artist or year or Workshop one can search the place like a virtual maze or perhaps a treasure hunt, tracing the particular locations of the numerous prints (which are not set up by chronological or name groups, nor separated into the geographically or otherwise different Workshops).

The acquired sense is of a vision that came to life and a blooming era for Printmaking in Israel.

Written by a true advocate of Printmaking.