Make art, love art

The streets and studios of Tel Aviv play host to a plethora of artists and choreographers.

By ORI J. LENKINSKI
Women's Aid (photo credit: Mini Moshe)
Women's Aid
(photo credit: Mini Moshe)
In the 1960s, the slogan “Make love, not war” was coined and spread widely as a response to the Vietnam War. Hippies, concerned individuals and pacifists around the world adopted it, making the short quote a trademark of the zeitgeist.
Some years later, as one of the many evolutions of this phrase, “Make art, not war” became a popular slogan.
Next week in Tel Aviv, the child of these two slogans will take shape in the form of a one-night event. Now celebrating more than 10 years of activity, the Making Art, Loving Art festival will grace the streets of Israel’s hippest city.
The event is an initiation of the Art Department of the Tel Aviv Municipality and has, until this year, been exclusive to visual artists. The happenings will be divided into two programs: Loving Art, which will host artists in public spaces; and Making Art, which invites the public into artists’ studio spaces.
This year, falling in line with a global trend that has brought dance into the museum halls alongside dozens of sculptors, painters and mixed media creators, Loving Art will host a selection of local choreographers. All the performances will take place outdoors, in various unusual locations throughout the city. In addition, galleries will be open late, inviting passers-by to take a gander.
Renana Raz’s YouMake, ReMake has been in constant motion since its premiere two seasons ago. Raz’s evening-length piece, which invites artists to respond to obscure videos found on YouTube, is now being presented in its second edition. The participants range from professional dancers to Raz’s grandmother-in-law.
YouMake, ReMake will be performed at the Flour Station on Abulafia Street.
Nimrod Freed’s Peep Dance will be positioned on Kalisher Street in south Tel Aviv. The piece, which functions as a type of visual art installation, brings out the voyeur in each spectator.
Inside a closed structure, two dancers twist and turn, visible only through peepholes in the fabric of the construct. Audience members may not have the easiest time catching each movement, but the strain involved in taking in Peep Dance is essentially the point of this clever work.
It seems fitting for Ronit Ziv’s With Subtitles to be performed outdoors.
The piece, which premiered last year, presents a certain type of life on the street. In this work, Ziv shows two very different women, separated by a thin wall. On one side of the barrier, one woman makes a living as a prostitute. On the other side, her lonely neighbor listens closely to every sound, both intrigued and offended by the goings-on in her building.
Anat Katz isn’t trying to dress up her reality for her audience. In fact, her approach is quite the opposite. In Justkatzit, Katz gives a detailed log of the dances she has made in the past several years, including in-depth information about the budget she had to work with in each process.
Though a certain degree of bitterness is present in Katz’s retelling of her choreographic history, the piece includes a good helping of joy as well.
Dancer Omer Uziel, whose interactions with the audience should make for an interesting outdoor viewer experience, joins Katz in this quirky performance.
Loving Art will take place on September 6 from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Making Art will run through the weekend in studio and gallery spaces in Tel Aviv. For more information, visit www.tel-aviv.gov.il.