The Israel Museum will light up the night on July 12, 2012 with Contact Point – a very different museum experience. Contact Point premiered in 2010 under the artistic direction of Nir Turk, celebrating the opening of the renewed museum and re-imagining the concept of a museum visit. Now in its 3rd edition, new Artistic Director Renana Raz continues the tradition, extending the boundaries of possibility, inviting an intriguing cohort of musicians, choreographers, actors and other creative personalities to explore the museum and create a site-specific performance relating to the space, the objects, and the thoughts and feelings they inspire. It all adds up to one of the best parties of the summer.
The eclectic offering will include:
Author Alex Epstein will sit down to write inside Mark Dion’s installation The Antiquarian Book Shop (2008). Situated in the Billy Rose Art Garden, the life-scale bookshop filled with books and objects is locked and inaccessible; this will be the first time that someone has entered the installation. Visitors will be able to enjoy a literary voyeuristic thrill, peering through the windows to watch Epstein compose on his laptop, and then viewing the text projected on Sol Lewitt’s Cube.
Radio personality and Ahla guy Benny Bashan will hold a mass reading of the The Little Prince on the Crown Plaza.
Here’s your chance to make your mark on the museum – Eli Petel and students of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design have created a space for visitors to express themselves visually on the walls of the museum.
Feeling sleepy? Noam Enbar will perform a concert of lullabies in the Good Night exhibit, Ruth Youth Wing. Take off your shoes, stretch out on a mattress and enjoy!
Connecting the Japanese art of Kabuki to the Western art of Drag, Ofer Amram has created a work in which gender identities mix and merge. Performed by Tal Klai and Yaara Shaham near the exhibit: Crossplay: Male Actors, Female Roles in Kabuki Theatre.
Musicians Uzi Feinerman, Ilan Green, Uri Brauner Kinrot, Eitan Radoshinski, Dan Toren, and Gershon Weiserfuhrer, offer individual musical tours of the museum, creating a soundtrack as you stroll together. Take note – this was incredibly popular last year, so make sure to sign up as soon as you get to the museum.
An alternate look at the museum will be offered by Rafeek, who will guide a blindfold tour.
Choreographer Noa Shadur will present a look at images of women circa 1950s by Menashe Kadishman’s sculpture Suspense, performed by: Rosalind Noctor, Inbar Nemirovsky, Einat Betsalel, and Ori Josephine Lenkinski.
Contact Point would not be Contact Point without the WI Party – dancing to music played through wireless headphones near Anish Kapoor’s sculpture Turning the World Upside Down, Jerusalem – this year with two channels of music, two parallel parties in the same space for people who like to be everywhere at once with DJs Ophir Toubul and Balkadan on one channel, Rob & Sabbo (Soulico) & VS on the other. Guy Yitzhaki has created video art for the party, inspired by Damien Hirst’s L-Leucine-15-N.
Taking the party spirit seriously – Panda Porn (Alma Ben Yossef & Tomer Rosenthal) will turn the Shrine of the Book – for the first time ever – into a chill electronic hang, starting at 2am.
You know you want to be there.
Tickets can be ordered online on the Jerusalem Season of Culture site.
Contact Point is a Jerusalem Season of Culture event created in cooperation with the Israel Museum. Artistic Director: Renana Raz. Production: Yael Maimoni, The Jerusalem Season of Culture and Neta Cohen, Head of Special Events Department, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Artistic Director, The Jerusalem Season of Culture: Itay Mautner.
