We did it! ilook Israeli street fashion blog has won the Streetclash international street fashion tournament! In the amount of time it takes four fashion trends to come and go, Tel Aviv’s finest took on the academic boho’s of Vilnius, the retro hipsters of Minneapolis and the (Eastern) Euro trendy of Talinn and won by a landslide. Well, sort of. But since voters were encouraged to vote with their fashion sense and not their patriotism, it was an exciting set of final rounds.

As the winner, iLook will be featured as part of an urban fashion and art festival running in conjunction with Berlin Fashion Week in a photo retrospective held at local store, Wedding Dress #2, January 25th through February 10th. But if you’re not one of the hundreds of Israelis who live or travel to Berlin, you can keep up with the latest Tel Aviv trends – or just check in for the shock value – by visiting ilook daily for a new pic. The photo from today (above) is funny because the John Lennon-esque dude is cool but the woman looks just ok. Nothing about her stands out as retro, fashion forward, daring, nothing. I mean what’s up with her shoes? In contrast, that dude is cool and the more I look at his sweater the more I think he raided my grandmother’s closet – and not Tommy Hilfiger’s as he claims.

I love urban renewal/ development projects that utilize art and culture. And lord knows, Israel’s Southern region could use a boost of tourism these days. Below two new sites down South (or at least South of where I live) for seeing Israeli art that don’t appear in your guidebooks:

You’re going to have to start counting the number of museums in Holon on two hands now as the Israeli Caricature and Comics Museum kicked opened its doors yesterday with proper pomp and circumstance. The opening ceremony included a speech from well-known secularist politician Tommy Lapid on the role of caricature in the Israeli press and from a UN-sponsored project called Cartooning for Peace. The museum was a collaborative initiative by the Holon municipality and Theater and the Israeli Caricature Association. One of 12 such museums in the world, it will promote caricature and comics as an art form in general, provide a venue for the display of local work and educate a wider generation of future artists and educated consumers. The museum will feature changing as well as permanent exhibitions and a special area will be devoted to the social and political prominence of cartoons in Israeli culture. A virtual collection and archive will be accessible through the Internet. More information in English here and here. And from the Israel Design Center also in Holon in Hebrew here.

A little further down South in Beer Sheva, Dani Machlis decided he couldn’t live without his photography, literally: he opened a photography gallery in his home. The opening – and probably somewhat permanent – exhibition features 50 works by, well, Machlis himself. The subjects range from Israeli soldiers in action to visits to New York and Africa. As Machlis explains, “The dream is to develop the Old City of Be’er Sheva and turn it into a cultural center that people visit for its own sake. It was easier to collect my own pictures for the opening exhibition, but temporary exhibitions by other photographers – particularly photographers from the South – will appear here in the future.” The gallery was produced and curated in conjunction with the Negev Museum of Art located nearby. Machlis also intends to feature local Southern artists in upcoming exhibitions. Viewing is by appointment only, just to make sure Machlis is not in his pajamas. Written up in Haaretz here or visit the gallery homepage here.
Above, photo by Dan Machlis, from Negev series

Update: Dani Machlis corrected the Haaretz article (see comments below) and me several times (yikes!?) but he writes that his home-based gallery has set opening hours on weekends for which appointments are not necessary. Check the website for more information and call before popping over during the week or after set hours on the weekends. (Hope I got it right this time

While I don’t consider myself a jet setter, a family fun-filled affair has me visiting NY for all of 36 hours. So while I’m drinking my coffee and watching the snow melt off the traffic on Broadway, I thought of the millions of other transplanted Israelis who make their way to NY every year – and then decided to hunt down some who came for artistic reasons (not just to move furniture or hock Dead Sea products at the mall.)

I came across the Six Points Fellowship which, through the support of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, AvodaArts and JDub Records and the UJA Federation of New York, provides 12 New York-based artists with two-year fellowships. Projects range in artistic media from performance arts, music and visual arts. Many of the fringe variety with commentaries on social, political, gender and personal issues. But the work of Ethiopian-born Israeli artist (Yagnanyu) Avishai Mekonen really stood out from among the pack, especially since it reached beyond geographic or contemporary boundaries.

An award winning documentary filmmaker and photographer, Mekonen addresses the multi-faceted social and cultural challenges facing Ethiopian Jews as they migrate from country to country and from generation to generation. His Seven Generations project, “creates a living commentary on the contemporary state of Ethiopian Jews’ assimilation juxtaposed against what is being lost with the passing of older generations.” Oral traditions and history are reframed within a photographic documentation of history and tradition as Mekonen questions the loss of the old and the acquisition of the new. The addition of the sounds of prayers, music and counting in Amharic then enhance the juxtaposition of historical, traditional, visual versus aural/oral, today versus yesteryear. I made it sound quite deep but check out the photographs for yourself; they’re very powerful and startling. They also speak for themselves, if you’re not interested in my ramblings…

More about Mekonen’s film can be found here and more about Ethiopian history and culture available from the non-profit advocacy group the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jewry.