An important part of the museum's activity revolves around the updating, preservation and renewal of its collection. In addition to presenting changing exhibitions, the museum's mission is to assemble and present the cultural assets produced by Israeli artists. Parallel to the preservation of works created in the past, the museum locates new works by contemporary artists, and updates its collections on an ongoing basis. This exhibition of new acquisitions presents works that were purchased by the museum or donated to it over the past year.
The choice of new works takes into consideration the need to integrate them into the existing collection in order to complement and enhance it. The guiding principle is the iconic, museal quality of works that represent their creators in a quintessential manner. This year, we decided to focus on two kinds of acquisitions: the first puts an emphasis on young, contemporary Israeli art, with the goal of encouraging the production of local contemporary art; the second focused on Israeli video works from the 1970s, as part of the unique activity of the Center for New Media - which is charged with the conservation and historical documentation of Israeli video art.
The works were acquired through the museum's acquisitions fund, which has renewed its activity over the past year with the assistance of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and thanks to the generous donation of Mrs. Heda Engel. Additional works were donated by the artists whose solo exhibitions were included in the exhibition series "Marshim" (curated by Yehudit Matzkel). Some of the new acquisitions have already been integrated into the exhibition "FATAMORGANA: Illusion and Deception in Contemporary Art."
The museum's acquisition committee is headed by Jacob Shacham, Chair of the Board of Directors. Its members included Aviva Dankner, Sara Breitberg-Semel, Yona Fischer, Nissim Tal, Tami Katz-Freiman, Ilana Tenenbaum and Ron Hillel.
