Output details

Art TLV 08: Open Plan Living

Art TLV 08 was a major new biennial for Tel Aviv, presented from 27 September to 18 October 2008 in many locations throughout the city, including major institutions such as the Museum of Tel Aviv. This citywide exhibition platform showed the work of more than 200 hundred Israeli and international artists. Its launch marked the approach of the city’s 100th anniversary in 2009.

I initiated this project, which not only engaged artists from all over the world but also set up and supported local and temporary gallery structures. This meant that diverse exhibitions could be included within the framework of the biennial, welcoming the research and perspectives of other curators. It seemed essential to develop an infrastructure in Tel Aviv that could be self-critical and reflexive in relation to its very specific and highly charged political context. The projects were not curated under a single vision, but instead proposed an open system that might accommodate the ever-changing flow of the city and its inhabitants. For example, it could accommodate a project presented by Jerusalem’s Israel Museum for the first time ever in Tel Aviv, while also allowing for projects by local artists’ collectives.

The subtitle of the biennial, ‘Open Plan Living,’ echoes displaced Zionist ideologies. It alludes to the architectural formalism of the Bauhaus or International style that strongly marks both the appearance and one might say the ideology of the city. The biennial gained support from over 30 organizations locally and internationally, including support from the city council as well as international cultural institutions such as British Council and the Goethe Institute. A 64-page catalogue accompanied the exhibition, to which I contributed an introduction.