The Tel Aviv Museum of Art has significantly expanded its collection by acquiring 35 new works from 11 contemporary Israeli artists in 2025. These acquisitions, totaling 500,000 Israeli New Shekels, were selected through the museum's "Voting for Art" initiative, where group members collectively choose artworks to join the museum's permanent holdings.
The diverse collection spans multiple artistic mediums including sculpture, painting, drawing, textiles, and photography, representing a comprehensive cross-section of contemporary Israeli creativity. Founded in 2013 and chaired by Yael Braun, the Voting for Art group was established to continuously expand and modernize the museum's Israeli art collection through an annual democratic selection process.
Since its inception, the initiative has successfully secured more than 200 artworks for the museum. The program specifically aims to achieve intergenerational representation, showcase diverse artistic media, and balance support for established artists while introducing emerging voices to the collection.
Among the standout sculptural pieces are three compelling works that demonstrate the range of contemporary Israeli sculpture. Chava Roucher's "Line" from 2010 features six aluminum figures depicting naked men and women arranged in a row, exploring themes of human vulnerability and collective identity. Michal Shamir's "Untitled" from 2024 presents an innovative assemblage created from cable ties and gold-painted bird spikes, creating a powerful visual tension between ornamental beauty and protective aggression that evokes both decoration and barbed wire. Moran Lee Yakir's "The Brothers" from 2024 offers a more experiential approach, featuring a clay cluster of body-like cylinders that emit subtle sounds of wind and waves, creating an immersive sensory experience for viewers.
The paper-based works reveal intimate artistic vocabularies that reflect personal and cultural narratives. Anisa Ashkar's "You" from 2022 represents a sophisticated fusion of Islamic calligraphy with gestural abstraction, documenting a complete daily cycle from sunrise to sunset and bridging traditional and contemporary artistic languages. Karen Dolev's "Chameleon" from 2023 consists of a pastel series that captures the shifting emotional spectrum reminiscent of mood rings, exploring the fluidity of human emotions through color transitions. Merav Kamel's "Artist Notebooks" spanning from 2019 to 2024 provide viewers with a raw, visceral, and associative record containing erotic, violent, and humorous imagery that offers unprecedented insight into the artist's creative process.
The painting and mixed media selections further demonstrate the collection's breadth and contemporary relevance. Orly Maiberg's "Late Autumn" from 2024 employs an innovative technique of stitching fragments from her earlier works into complex layered textile compositions, creating a dialogue between past and present artistic expressions. Gabriella Klein's "Twisted Sister" from 2025 presents an intimate portrait capturing her reclining sister with phone in hand against a muted backdrop, reflecting contemporary digital-age relationships and modern lifestyle. Ran Tenenbaum's "Self-Portrait with a Hoodie" from 2024 remains deliberately unfinished, with its crimson underlayer creating a shadowing effect that gives the figure a haunting, spectral presence.
Photography maintains a central role in the new acquisitions, with works that address both social engagement and landscape documentation. Ron Amir contributes seven significant images drawn from his extensive long-term projects, including "Jisr az Zarqa" and "Galilean Landscape," which reflect his socially conscious approach to documenting communities that are often overlooked or marginalized in Israeli society. His work demonstrates a commitment to bringing attention to underrepresented populations through thoughtful visual storytelling.
Gustavo Sagorsky's photographic contribution consists of three carefully composed images taken around Moshav Aminadav near Jerusalem. His work focuses on transitional landscapes that bear subtle yet meaningful traces of human activity, exploring the complex relationship between natural environments and human intervention in the Israeli landscape.
Collectively, these 35 acquisitions create a comprehensive portrait of Israeli art in 2025, capturing works that are simultaneously intimate and public, experimental and rooted in tradition. The selection reflects the dynamic nature of contemporary Israeli artistic expression, encompassing both personal narratives and broader cultural themes. For the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, these acquisitions represent another significant chapter in an ongoing collective effort to maintain a collection that remains responsive to the constantly shifting present, ensuring that the museum's holdings continue to reflect the evolving landscape of Israeli contemporary art and culture.
