Smadar Sheffi

The 51st Venice Biennale opened yesterday for artists and journalists and opens to the general public on Sunday.

The "Hava Nagila" (Come, Let us Rejoice) exhibition by Yehuda Porbuchrai demands attention.

102 women artists show their work at Liga in the Tel Aviv Port. Why do an injustice to the works of good artists who happen to be women and show them together with works by mediocre artists who also happen to be women?

At the end of a week-long visit to Israel, Charles Esche and Vasif Kortun, curators of the 9th Istanbul Biennale, gave a nod to just one local artist - Yael Bartanna.

Marc Scheps is back at the Tel Aviv Museum, fifteen years after leaving as its director following most serious crisis in the history of the museum. Scheps is back as guest curator of the exhibition "Patterns - An East-West Symbiosis" by Reuven Kadim (Berman), which opens today.

Although it is not a small exhibition, 'Embroidery Action' is one of those rare ones that seem to end too soon.

The Israel Prize for Art is undergoing another shake-up this year. The choice of Yigael Tumarkin this year is liable to produce a regrettable devaluation in the status of the prize. Tumarkin already deserved the prize 30 years ago due to his innovation and audaciousness in the Israeli art scene.

Only three sculptures are on exhibit in the beautiful Alberto Giacometti exhibition at Tel Aviv Museum even though this medium is most highly identified with the artist.

"The first impression you get from the museum hall itself is that it's all too strong, too over powering," says Italian curator Pier Luigi Tazzi, speaking about the venue of the Art Focus 4 events, which opened last Thursday at Jerusalem's Museum of the Underground Prisoners 1914-1948.

"Omanutisrael.com - Globalism and the Question of Israeli Art" is a disappointment. It's a pity that this particular exhibition closes the first year of Time for Art (Zman Le'omanut), a gallery that has contributed significantly to the Israeli scene by presenting an agenda different from that of the big museums.

The Abel Pann exhibition at the Israel Museum is not called a retrospective, but in the introduction to the catalogue the director of the Israel Museum, James Snyder, defines it as "the first comprehensive museum presentation of his work."

Yehiel Shemi, one of Israel's leading sculptors, died early yesterday morning after a long illness. He was 81.

At times there is something infuriating about full-length films about artists. Although the film "Frida," directed by Julie Taymor, is graced with great visual beauty, during its entire length, it is difficult to understand when exactly Frida Kahlo had time to paint.

Zadok Ben-David's sculpture "For the Tree of the Field is Man's Life" was installed last week at Yad Vashem. (The name is taken originally from Deuteronomy 20:19 but in contemporary Israeli culture is linked to the poem by Natan Zach.)

Painter Moshe Kupperman, 77, one of the leading artists in Israel, died yesterday of heart failure at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.

The 50th Biennale of International Art, which opens this Saturday in Venice under the title `Dreams and Conflicts,' will be larger than ever. Israeli art will also be showcased.

"Salame and Abulafia" - Exhibition of works in two Tel Aviv galleries by graduates of the advanced studies program in fine arts, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design

Francesco Bonami visits Israel in search of art for the Venice Biennale

"A Drop of Milk", a huge new installation created by Hilla Lulu Lin at the Acre Festival, marks an important step in the development of this excellent artist as well as an interesting attempt to deal with subjects at the center of Israel's political experience.

"Fontanella" by Meir Shalev, Am Oved, 498 pages, NIS 88.

Tel Aviv's dolphin project and comme-il-faut's new fashion catalogue debase and cheapen art.

Tel Aviv's dolphin project and comme-il-faut's new fashion catalogue debase and cheapen art.