Last update - 00:00 02/10/2007
Green group opposes TASE exhibit's globalization message
By Yigal Hai, Haaretz Correspondent
The Tel Aviv branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) has protested against the "Gate to the World" exhibition on Rothschild Boulevard. The exhibition's organizers say that it "sends a message of globalization."
For their part, the heads of the SPNI branch criticized the contents of the exhibition in addition to the fact that the boulevard was closed to the general public during an invitation-only event on opening night.
The exhibition, which opened last Monday and will remain open to the public for a month and a half, is the next offering in a series of exhibits sponsored by the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The show features 100 artists' interpretations of globalization using the globe as a medium. Market spokesmen said the aim is to present the vision and values of the companies traded on the TASE. SPNI disagrees.
"The events on the boulevard once again symbolize the way in which commercial bodies have gained control of what belongs to everyone," said Anat Barkai-Nevo, the director of SPNI's Tel Aviv branch. "This process excludes the public from places that are supposed to be open, available and independent. An installation of this kind, which deals with the globe, should ideally include socio-environmental messages instead of the message of encouraging globalization."
A matter of taste
Environmental adviser Yair Angel, a Tel Aviv resident, also said he opposed the exhibition.
"Since when has globalization become a vision?" he asked. "We have received yet another project which puts the rich on a pedestal at the expense of our public spaces."
In response, the Tel Aviv municipality demurred, calling the exhibit's content a matter of taste.
"The municipality promotes activities that allow artists and the general public to get together. The municipality uses its discretion and when it finds an event is artistic, cultural and open to the general public that uses public space without enclosing it, there is no reason not to approve it. The stock market received permission to use the boulevard with certain restrictions and under certain conditions which it has upheld, and [on conditions that it] paid for all costs involved in setting up the installation, maintaining it, taking it down and cleaning up around it. The exhibition was approved by a municipal committee for cooperative efforts."
The TASE responded: "The exhibition is part of a tradition of exhibitions on Rothschild Boulevard which the stock exchange began two years ago with the 'Bulls and Rates' exhibit. More than a million people saw the last exhibition. The topic of this year's exhibition is globalization and Israel's integration into international markets."
Exchange spokesmen stressed that street exhibitions are a feature of all the large cities in the world.
"We are happy to hold an exhibition that makes it possible for better-known artists, as well as those who are just starting out, to present their works while expressing different positions and messages related to the subject," a TASE spokesman said. "This is not a commercial event but rather an event we have invested in, that will be an attraction for both city residents and visitors. This is the first exhibition of its kind offering viewing hours during the day and at night."
A spokesperson said the opening event, which was by invitation only, lasted an hour only; during the first four days of the exhibition, more than 100,000 people visited.