Bezalel grad and recent Israel Prize winner Micha Ullman has offered his work “Equinox” to the museum. Ullman, who’s work often lies mostly underground, with just the tip sticking out (see Berlin’s “Library” Holocaust memorial), has created a mostly subterranean box, which sits empty, containing only the shadow of the person peering in. Depending on the time of day and year, the light will play different tricks inside the empty room, and twice a year, on the equinoxes, a door will seem to appear at one end. The word for equinox in Hebrew – yom hashivyon – also means equality, lending the work a deeper import. The sculpture is easy to miss, as the only part sticking out of the top looks like a glass topped bench. It’s probably not a good idea to rest your weary feet there while touring the hilly 20 dunam (seven acre) site, though.
The other new work is by American artist Mark Dion, who is known for vast works that look at ideas of past, archeology and ecology (he once dredged a canal in Venice for a piece, and dug out a section of the Thames’ bank for artifacts to be displayed at London’s Tate Modern). This time he’s built a small house in the garden, a home for old books and curios called “Antiquarian Book Shop,” pictured. There’s no getting inside to peruse the offerings, as the installation is meant to be static, but windows allow visitors to peer inside at the still life. It beats watching the clock until the rest of the museum reopens its doors, slated for May 2010.
