Israel Ceramics Museum / Anna Carmi

Anna Carmi

Curator: Amnon Amos

Opening:  Thursday, 29/07/21, 18:00-22:00

An online Gallery Talk: Wednesday, 25/08/21, 19:30 For registration 

“Anna announces the opening of the Israel Ceramics Museum which will house collections of works of all sorts made in Israel.”

Anna Carmi, an artist who works in clay, lays the foundation for the utopic vision which she declared in the research process working towards this exhibition.  From the meetings with collectors of Israeli ceramics, discussions with colleagues, and as part of the documentation of the extinct Israeli ceramics industry which has interested her in the past years, she came to the realization that even though Israeli ceramics is valued and appreciated, it will be lost without an official state organization taking responsibility for exhibiting and documenting this medium.   The idea of a museum is not new, there were others who had this idea before her, but Anna brings a special energy that few have, to dream ideas and to make them real.

The works shown in the exhibition are based on Anna’s private collection of ceramics that tells the story of Israeli ceramics in her eyes. She believes that Israeli ceramics has undergone a process of “privatization”, the breakdown of the collective and the transition to the individual maker, a phenomon of globalization. One of the purposes of the museum is to re-instate the balance between the individual and the group within the ceramic community and to emphasize the Israeli ceramic history. “Know where you came from and where you are going and before whom you are going to give account” (Ethics of the Fathers).  Her inspiration for this initiative is Professor Boris Shatz, the founder of Bezalel, a figure she defines as mystical and spiritual.  Anna feels that the museum is no less important than the National Library, and that we are obligated to leave this heritage for future generations.

Anna is a total artist, well-known as a colorful and captivating personality. Her studio in the backyard of her home in the heart of Beit Hakerem in Jerusalem is a center that is alive with activity, a meeting place for people that are diverse and varied, attracted to the magic of ceramics.  Her works mirror her personality, rich and profuse with visual ideas, planned but open to the serendipity of clay processes, firing many times, layer upon layer with bright colors, overloaded with images and on top of that gold, a lot of gold, *luster of pure gold and then on top of that precious stones, dazzling and blurring thoughts to touch on the essence of creativity and overcome the foolishness of charm, to touch the emotion buried deep inside.

“At the Benyamini Center I laid the cornerstone of the Israel Ceramics Museum” – and Anna calls upon all those who cherish the making in clay to join the effort of establishing a permanent home for collections of Israeli ceramics. The works in the exhibition call on the public to assist in this effort.

*Luster – a thin layer of precious metals: gold, silver, platinum, melted onto the glaze create a metallic shiny surface.  This method began in Mesopotamia (Iraq today) at the beginning of the 9^th century AD and reached its peak in the Islamic period in Iran, Egypt, and Syria and from there to Europe.  Luster was always expensive and was used to decorate ornaments and tableware of nobility and the upper class.