This Yom Haatzmaut, Israeli artists have a lot to celebrate. As JTA’s Ben Harris recently reported, Israeli art is doing as well as ever.
In 2002, the video artist Michal Rovner had a solo show at the Whitney Museum in New York and Ori Gersht had one at the Tate Britain in London. The following year, nine Israeli artists were chosen for the prestigious Venice Biennale. Prices for contemporary Israeli work have also been creeping up to levels approaching luminaries like Rubin and Mordechai Ardon, another late Israeli painter.
But this season, as Israel reaches its 59th year, the 2007 Sotheby’s sale brought in nearly $5 million, a 25 percent increase over the 2005 sale, and included record sales for several Israeli artists. It fell short of last year’s tally of more than $6 million, but that number was reached on the strength of just four paintings — two by Rubin and two by Marc Chagall that together accounted for more than a quarter of the total. (MORE)
You can read MJL’s overview of contemporary Israeli art here.
