Israel Museum Kapoor Work Turns Jerusalem Upside Down (Update1)
An untitled new sculpture by Anish Kapoor is shown, top right, in this architectural rendering of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The new building and artwork have now gone on show. Source: Israel Museum via Bloomberg
An artwork by Olafur Eliasson, `Whenever the Rainbow Appears,' is shown in this architectural rendering. The new building and artwork went on show in Jerusalem in July 2010. Source: Israel Museum via Bloomberg
An untitled new sculpture by Anish Kapoor is shown, top right, in this architectural rendering of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem provided to the media on March 7, 2010. The new building and artwork will go on show in July 2010. Source: Israel Museum via Bloomberg
Jerusalemites will soon have their world turned upside down -- in the reflective stainless-steel surface of a sculpture by Anish Kapoor that will stand in the grounds of the renovated Israel Museum set to reopen in July.
Kapoor’s untitled 2010 work, and an installation by Olafur Eliasson, were both commissioned for the facelift, said director James Snyder.
Like Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” piece in Chicago, nicknamed “The Bean,” the 5-meter-high (16 feet) work will provide viewers with a distorted reflection of reality, in this case by inverting its surroundings on an hourglass-shaped mirror, placing the museum’s campus atop the sky.
The piece is a tribute to Teddy Kollek, who served 28 years as the mayor of Israel’s capital, and will “reflect the essence of Teddy’s vision for the museum and its unique placement in the landscape of Jerusalem,” said Snyder. Kollek died in 2007.
Nir Barkat, the current mayor, welcomed the addition of the commissions to the renovated campus of Israel Museum, which he called “an integral force in opening up the culture of Jerusalem for the world to enjoy.”
The museum is in the final stages of its most extensive renovation since Kollek founded it in 1965. Its $100 million makeover will double the gallery space and make it more accessible for visitors who come to see such treasures as the Dead Sea Scrolls housed in the Shrine of the Book gallery. The museum has kept open the Shrine and its Youth Wing during what will be a 30-month-long reconstruction. The art garden and model of Jerusalem outside have also remained accessible.
Going Underground
A new underground entrance walkway connects the museum’s buildings and will feature the piece by Eliasson, whose imitation sun “Weather Project” dazzled visitors at London’s Tate Modern in 2003-2004. He also entranced New Yorkers in 2008 with four artificial waterfalls placed around the waterfront.
Eliasson’s Jerusalem commission is a 15-meter-long and 2.4- meter-high wall of 300 individual paintings that comprise a complete spectrum of colors. It is titled “Whenever the Rainbow Appears,” from the Biblical story about Noah and the global flood. The work will “serve as a segue to the riches the museum’s collection holds,” Snyder said.
Kapoor is a British citizen of Indian/Jewish descent who lived and studied in Israel for a few years during the 1970s. Snyder called both him and the Danish-Icelandic Eliasson “old friends” of the museum, because examples of their work have been in the museum’s collection for a number of years.
U.S. Donors
The Eliasson commission was paid for by New York’s Alice and Thomas Tisch, and the Kapoor by San Francisco’s Richard Goldman and other donors, including Charles Bronfman and Lily Safra. Safra was last month named by dealers as the buyer of the Alberto Giacometti sculpture that fetched a record 65 million pounds (then $103.4 million) at an auction in London.
Snyder declined to disclose the cost of either of the museum’s works. A stainless-steel mirror sculpture by Kapoor was sold for $974,500 at a Sotheby’s auction in Qatar last March. A similar sculpture by Kapoor, dating from 1996, was sold for 982,050 pounds ($1.49 million) at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Feb. 5. It had been expected to fetch 500,000 pounds to 700,000 pounds.
To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net; Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net
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