720 Degrees of separation

Artist Ron Arad’s monumental installation will be on view at the heart of The Israel Museum’s Billy Rose Art Garden.

By JERUSLAM POST STAFF
720 Degrees 370 (photo credit: Courtesy)
720 Degrees 370
(photo credit: Courtesy)
As part of the Jerusalem Season of Culture, artist Ron Arad’s monumental installation 720 Degrees – an immersive experience that presents 360-degree screenings of films and video art – will be on view at the heart of The Israel Museum’s Billy Rose Art Garden.
Composed of 5,600 silicon rods suspended from a height of eight meters to form a perfect circle, 720 Degrees allows visitors to experience projections both inside the installation’s interior and from vantage points across the museum’s 20-acre campus.
720 Degrees will be presented through September 5, featuring a nightly scheduled program of video projections by leading multi-media artists, together with surprise presentations by Israeli performers and performance artists.
In this work, Arad provides an alternative experience of images in motion. Each evening, video works and films by Mat Collishaw, Ori Gersht, Christian Marclay and David Shrigley, among many others, will be projected in an hour-long loop. In addition, short surprise performances with leading Israeli artists in music, dance, poetry and theater will be staged within and projected on the massive installation.
Performances will not be announced in advance, creating unexpected and memorable experiences for each evening’s guests.
“We are always experimenting with new ways for our visitors to interact with great works of art in the museum’s unique landscape and setting,” says James Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher director of the Israel Museum. “Ron Arad is one of the leading figures in art and design to emerge from Israel’s current generation, and we are delighted to provide him with our very special venue for this monumentally engaging work. We look forward to enjoying our audience’s spontaneous interactions with and responses to it,” he says.
“Jerusalem has become a world-class cultural destination, and we hope that art and design lovers, and tourists of all kinds, will enjoy Ron Arad’s 720 Degrees as a catalyst to appreciate our beautiful city with fresh eyes and in a new light,” says Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. “We are delighted to partner with the Schusterman Foundation, the Jerusalem Season of Culture and the Israel Museum in this creative enterprise.”
The installation is a collaborative project of the Jerusalem Season of Culture and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and was originally developed and presented with the title Curtain Call as a part of the Bloomberg Summer at the Roundhouse Series, London in 2011.
NIS 36 to NIS 45. For more information about 720 Degrees: , , (02) 670-8811