When it comes to creation, there are no boundaries

Rebecca Stadlen Amir

Ron Arad’s “All and Nothing” exhibition at Gordon Gallery in Tel Aviv. Photo by Rebecca Stadlen Amir

Award-winning Israeli architect and designer Ron Arad does not like to be defined. Between his London-based architecture studio, furniture collaborations with Moroso, prestigious gallery shows at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the MoMA in New York, it’s become clear that there are no boundaries for Arad when it comes to creation. “It doesn’t help me to define. I do what I’m interested in, what excites me, and hopefully it excites other people. Is it art? Is it design? Who cares?” Arad told ISRAEL21c at a preview of his newest gallery exhibition, “All and Nothing.”

Despite having designed many well-known projects around Israel, including the Design Museum Holon, “All and Nothing” is Arad’s first-ever gallery show in his native country.

The site-specific exhibition is taking place from March 22 to May 5 at Gordon Gallery in South Tel Aviv, an area that has become a growing center for the contemporary Israeli art scene in recent years.

32 mirror polished stainless steel tables arrived in crates from Holland for Ron Arad’s show in Tel Aviv. Photo by Rebecca Stadlen Amir

The exhibition is centered on 32 irregularly shaped, stainless steel tables arranged throughout the gallery space. Some of the mirror-polished tables stand on four legs while others are carefully curved around corners and mounted to the wall, allowing gallery-goers to weave through the space and catch reflections from every angle.

Also of note are the empty spaces between the tables, which Arad says helped inspire the exhibition’s name, “All and Nothing.”

“It has to do with the reflections that reflect the world and the gaps between them – the nothing – that play a part as well,” said Arad. “It’s a name; you give something a name and the name begins to work.”

One wall-mounted table features perforated holes which, when looked at from afar, reveal a hidden message – klum (the Hebrew word for “nothing”).

“All and Nothing,” Table no. 14, 2018, mirror-polished stainless steel and patinated mild steel. Photo courtesy of Gordon Gallery

Arad left Israel for London in 1973 but remained connected to his Israeli roots, frequently flying back and forth for design projects and family visits. Although most of his work was created outside of Israel, Arad says that growing up in Israel influenced his work.

“I grew up here [in Tel Aviv] and that’s where I learned about the world and about art,” Arad told ISRAEL21c. “Also for the last 45 years I have not lived here, so being an outsider has its own quality. It gives you freedom to do what you want. You don’t owe anything to your old neighbors and aunt.”

After training as an architect at the Architectural Association in London, Arad transitioned into industrial design in the early 1980s after stumbling upon a Rover car seat in a local scrapyard and transforming it into the iconic Rover Chair. Since then, Arad has designed bestselling chairs, tables and bookshelves whose commercial success has landed them in homes around the world.

Ron Arad’s Rover Chair, 1981. Photo courtesy of Ron Arad Associates

Arad returned to architecture in 2008, when he established a separate studio, Ron Arad Architects, to focus on a wide range of projects including designing restaurants, residences, hotels and large-scale public projects.

Among the spaces he has designed are the technology floor at Selfridge’s in London, a Yohji Yamamoto boutique in Tokyo and the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC.

The ToHA office towers in Tel Aviv. Photo courtesy of Ron Arad Associates

His most recent architecture project in Tel Aviv, the ToHa office tower, made headlines when it became known as the tallest building in Israel. The office development, located at the junction of Hashalom and Yigal Alon streets, consists of two towers (28 and 64 stories) and is set for completion this year. The angles of the towers’ iceberg shape are intended to maximize solar shading for the occupants and reduce the structure’s carbon footprint.

Another Israel-based project in the works is the Beit Shulamit cancer treatment center at Emek Medical Center in Afula, a regional hospital in the north. The facility will serve a diverse ethnic population including Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze communities from a wide spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds.

“The thing is, even when you do a museum, do you save the world? No, you don’t,” Arad told ISRAEL21c. “There [at Beit Shulamit] it’s a no-brainer that we’re doing a good thing. The building is more to do with how we are improving the patients’ lives, the families, the people that work there; it’s not about what the building looks like as you drive past.”

For more information on Ron Arad’s “All and Nothing” gallery show, click here.

PROCEEDS OF SALES OF ANNE FRANK’S DIARY TO BE DONATED TO NEW ISRAEL FUND

GIL HOFFMAN

The Anne Frank Fonds and the New Israel Fund have teamed up in a new venture.

Anne Frank in 1940, while at 6. Montessorischool, Niersstraat 41-43, Amsterdam. (photo credit: PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to harm the New Israel Fund endured another blow on Wednesday, as the left-wing umbrella group announced a partnership with the Anne Frank Fonds, the foundation founded by her father, Otto Frank, which administers her diary.

Netanyahu instructed coalition chairman David Amsalem last Tuesday to establish a parliamentary committee of inquiry to look into the group’s activities that, he charged, endanger “the security and future of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.”

Since then, donations to the New Israel Fund have skyrocketed, with NIS 800,000 donated by Israelis and another NIS 200,000 in North America. The deal with the Anne Frank Fonds was signed last month, but purposely announced on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

A New Israel Fund spokesman said the charity was aware of Netanyahu’s attack but decided to proceed with the deal anyway.

“Anne Frank is a symbol of humanity, justice, tolerance and acceptance of the other,” the Anne Frank Fonds said in a statement. “These values are the main focus of the work of the New Israel Fund in helping Israel become more democratic and bettering Israeli society.”

The Anne Frank Fonds, which is based in Basel, Switzerland, has donated hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs annually to causes in Israel, in addition to fighting antisemitism and supporting projects around the world like the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund. It was founded by Otto Frank on January 24, 1963.

The sole survivor of the Frank family and thus Anne Frank’s heir, Otto designated the Anne Frank Fonds as his heir. That is why the foundation owns and administers the rights to her diary and all of her writings.

New Israel Fund director-general Mickey Gitzin said cooperating with the Anne Frank Fonds would strengthen his organization’s activities on multiple issues, including the struggle for social justice, advancing coexistence and women’s rights, and the fight against racism.

Netanyahu accused the New Israel Fund on his Facebook page of being a “foreign” organization that receives money from foreign governments and organizations hostile to Israel, such as those funded by US billionaire George Soros.

The principal aim of the New Israel Fund, he wrote, is to “erase the Jewish nature of Israel and turn it into a state of all its citizens – alongside a Palestinian state free of Jews along the 1967 lines, with Jerusalem as its capital.”

What Do You Get When You Cross Oranges and Zionism?

   Government Press Office – לשכת העיתונות הממשלתית

Izraelski dylemat afrykańskich migrantów

Sara Cowen i Daniel Pomerantz
Tłumaczenie: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Ponad 20 tysięcy afrykańskich azylantów i aktywistów praw człowieka demonstrowało w Tel Awiwie przeciwko planom deportowania afrykańskich azylantów. Zdjęcie:  Gili Yaari/Flash90

Kigali, Ruanda

Dobrze wiadomo, że Izrael stosuje pewną dyskryminację w polityce imigracyjnej: łatwiej akceptuje Żydów niż nie-Żydów. Mniej uświadomiony jest fakt, że wszystkie inne kraje robią podobnie.
Na przykład, w odróżnieniu od stosunkowo przychylnego traktowania azylantów z Syrii i Afryki, Unia Europejska odmówiła statusu uchodźców 98,2 procentom setek tysięcy Ukraińców, uciekających przed rosyjską inwazją, a 70% nie otrzymało nawet częściowej ochrony.

Geografia

Lokalizacja Izraela czyni go szczególnie unikatowym krajem. Kulturowo i politycznie jest pod wieloma względami częścią Zachodu, ale mieści się na Bliskim Wschodzi i graniczy z północną Afryką.
Profesor Ruth Gavison, z Towarzystwa Praw Obywatelskich w Izraelu wyjaśnia, że istnieje dobrze ustanowiona różnica między tym, skąd dokładnie pochodzą starający się o azyl (podkreślenie dodane):

…przybyciem tysięcy migrantów , pochodzących  z krajów, które nie mają wspólnej granicy z Izraelem (i nie jest jasne, czy są migrantami w poszukiwaniu pracy, czy azylantami), a sytuacją, w której niewielka liczba osób, uciekających przed bezpośrednim niebezpieczeństwem, jakie grozi im w ich kraju sąsiadującym z Izraelem, przybywa na granice państwa.

Ci, którzy uciekli ze swoich domów na całej północy i Rogu Afryki, zazwyczaj wybierają Izrael jako swój punkt docelowy: zazwyczaj przechodząc przez rozdarte wojną kraje Czadu, Libii i Egiptu (włącznie z tyglem grup terrorystycznych na egipskiej pustyni Synaju).
Azylanci, którzy przechodzą przez takie kraje, ryzykują dostanie się do niewoli, zgwałcenie i tortury przez handlarzy ludźmi, jak również zastrzelenie lub inną krzywdę z rąk straży granicznej.

Uchodźcy z Darfuru w ogrodzie Róż w Jerozolimie