Between Pasts and Future

The Israeli effort to be a “normal” society, (and the irony that the need for such an effort underscores the abnormalcy of Israeli reality) is reflected in Israeli art, as in the disproportionate number of galleries, the passion for artists’ colonies and sculpture gardens (even within large industrial complexes, such as at Kfar Vradim, in the Galilee), the proliferation of museums of exemplary quality and the soaring percentage of the population that is enrolled, formally, in artists’ associations. Israeli Art began as part of the statement that we are here; it has become part of the question: what are we? In layered pasts, in indigenous internationality, in diversity of experience and reflection, Israeli art inevitably echoes what the community is or how its artists feel about or wish to see it—a radicant community, whether in the visions and re-versions of yesterday or the existential questions of today and tomorrow.