Category: Reporter Packages

Ron Jacobsohn Joins British-Israeli Artist, Gabriel Klasmer, for a Tour at his New Exhibit. Israeli born, London-based artist, Gabriel Klasmer has had a very active international career showing his art at such prestigious venues as the Museum of Modern art in New York, The International Biennale in Sao Paulo, the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin or the Alexia Goethe Gallery in London. Now he is back in home with an exhibition, which gives a unique look at his art spread over three floors at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Arts.

Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
Israeli born, London-based artist, Gabriel Klasmer has had a very active international career showing his art at such prestigious venues as the Museum of Modern art in New York, The International Biennale in Sao Paulo, the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin or the Alexia Goethe Gallery in London. Now he is back in home with an exhibition, which gives a unique look at his art spread over three floors at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Arts.

When we asked Klasmer, if he feels London is a better place to work as an artist, we received a very unexpected answer.

Gabriel Klasmer, Artist:
I think life in London is ten times tougher than here, I think artists in Israel are spoiled, there’s some much attention given to artists, so many places to show. I mean maybe there’s not so much money but, you know, London is tougher, ten times tougher. It’s challenging, you know, it’s the top league, you see the best, the best of the world, you know, is there, so I think there’s no comparison in that sense. Not that I don’t, I don’t undermine what is happening here, I think there are fantastic artists, but here artists are relatively spoiled in Israel. I realize it actually drives me crazy. I, you know, you are either here or there; you can’t be in both places I think. You’re engaged intensively when you’re here, you’re engaged intensively in this place and when you’re in London you’re engaged intensively in London so hopping around makes it difficult for me.

The senior curator of the Tel-Aviv Museum of Arts, Ellen Ginton, admits getting Klasmer to agree to create a retrospective exhibit was almost a mission impossible.

Ellen Ginton, Senior Curator, Tel-Aviv Museum of Arts:
It’s many years that I chase artists and he’s avoiding and escaping and he escaped as far as London, where he stayed for the last 20 years. Every museum in Israel wished to have his retrospective but he hates to look backwards, he’s like a kid in the sand, you know, he always likes to invent new toys and he doesn’t like to look back at all, he’s an experimental, he invents machines and painting machines. The time has come, we’ve reached that point that we open his one-man show which has a retrospective element to it, it’s not a retrospective because you cannot pin him down but it has a range of works from the 80’s until this very year and it’s a very wide spectrum of works so we are very honored and happy about it.

Art aficionado Lili Elstein, walks around with her favorite Klasmer painting, which show owns, on her iPhone. Elstein is well known in Israel as a great art lover and donor to the Tel-Aviv Museum of Arts. She is currently in construction on a philanthropic artist sanctuary in Zircon Yaakov.

Lili Elstein, Israeli Art Aficionado:
I bought this painting nine or ten years ago, I saw it at Naomi Giv’on’s Gallery, standing there quietly, and I said: who is that and what is it? And I live with it all this time, it’s placed on a Leather Bordeaux sofa and it merges into the room and it’s wonderful. In two months it will be moved to a big center for arts and music in Zircon Yaakov, there I present my collection and other things as well.

Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
In addition to being a working artist, Klasmer, is also helping a whole new generations of artist get their skills as a teacher at the Royal College of Art in London.
For JN1 I am Ron Jacobsohn at the Museum of Arts in Tel-Aviv