Class/Craft:
 
[Excerpts from several conversations held between Nahum Tevet and Nir Harel, Dana Yoeli, Shai Yehezkelli, Hila Laviv and Ravit Mishli. The conversations were held in light of Nahum Tevet's retirement as head of the program, after ten years.]  
 
Shai Yehezkelli: How do you see the program in light of your teaching experience? What are your expectations for the next couple of years and how do you view what you have set out to achieve back then, in comparison to what is happening now?

I will start at the end and work my way backwards. When the program opened in Tel Aviv ten years ago, I did not imagine that we will get to were we are now. The entire thing developed in motion, and today things are far better than anything we had dared imagine.

I can testify to what was on my mind at the time: there was a certain anomaly in Israel, students finished the forth year of their BFA, after going through a process for four years, and the end of the forth year becomes this crucial moment. It turned into this "make or break" moment. Essentially, I thought that the growth of an artist does not correspond to the years you study in art school. The process of coming into your own as an artist is a long one, and doesn't necessarily reaches its pick by the end of the forth year.
 
Another thing was, I thought that artists do not have "a home" in Tel Aviv. The museum, for instance, had stopped functioning as a center that produces a meaningful and influential discourse. In the 70s, for example, the museum had a role; there were debates on the place of the museum. Now it had become an elephant. Today, the art community, if such a thing even exists, has no special interest in what the museum is doing, it targets different audiences. I thought that Tel Aviv had energy, and such a place could serve it as a cultivating center, to create "a home" of sorts.  
 
Ravit Mishly: On different occasions you use the expression "Mapai'nik". [Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, the dominant force in Israeli politics until the 70s - t.n] What do you mean by that? Is it a derogative expression or perhaps it is more than that? Was that ideology meaningful to you? Does it still have the same meaning?
 
I use it as with a certain irony, but also with some understanding for well-meaning, לא  חסרה מילה complex institutional systems. The MFA program operates within a system. The academy and other similar institutions have their own logic, we are supposed to produce degree-holding students. When I started as head of the program, I thought: how could I use this academic mechanism in order to benefit artists and art. The internal logic of an academic institution that hands out degrees: bachelor, masters, doctorates, professorships etc., is an independent logic, and not necessarily in agreement with the logic guiding artistic development and the growth of an artist. For me, the question was (and still is), how can you harness that logic to the main thing, which is creating fresh and exciting art.  
 
Ravit: The two don't always go hand in hand…
 
Every artist has a worldview, or a view of art: what is art, what is good art, what is the role of art – ethical positions and from the studio work and your positions, there are a moments in which it is important to understand that there are other ways you can influence the direction you believe in. When I was offered to run the program I thought it was worthwhile making the effort of doing it.
 
Already in the first steps of the formation of the program we've tried to build a greenhouse model. A place that encourages, nurtures and cultivates new ideas and creative forces. That kind of thinking does not always go along comfortably with the formal academic requirements. I think your questions read into the expression "Mapai'nik" an ideology, a fantasy that you are building something which has a vision. 
 
I have always thought that great art is being made in Israel, and that it doesn't receive the recognition it deserves, and by that I do not mean market value, but rather appreciation and self worth. There is conceptual vitality, fascinating visual expressions and wonderful artists, which do not get enough recognition in Israel and outside it. Tremendous energy. I thought that we should put all these things together, build a place for them.
 
You might even say that the program has "its own architecture" – an internal structure that has a profound understanding, melting and blending, successfully in my opinion, the unique particular qualities of Israeli culture, the way it is created and the contexts in which it operates. This "architecture" evolved over the years out of different intuitions, conversations and actions. Some people who are critical of the program say: "you've created a place for promoting careers". But I think it is a place that encourages good art.  
 
Ravit: What is wrong with wanting to make a career?
 
Today the culture has changed, and artists in 2010 can be serious, good, interesting, innovative and original, as well as successful. That is a good thing. I have been teaching at Bezalel's BFA studies for many years, and the connection I and other teachers have with the graduates continues informally long after graduation, with studio visits, conversations, advisement and guidance. The structure of the program was formed, at the end of the day, out of that experience. I did not sit down and read programs of other schools, I did not have the patience, but rather I thought "this is how is should be done". I know up close the tremendous difficulties facing young people who turn to create art in Israel.  
 
Nir Harel: Bezalel in Jerusalem always seemed to me like an island of sorts, detached from the city; the city is mainly a backdrop to the school. How do you see the relationship between the program and Tel Aviv? How do you see the difference between Bezalel's BFA and MFA programs?
 
BFA studies are often like a lab of sorts, a lab for experimentation and thought. A closed community of students trying to create a language and a discourse and in Bezalel it works wonderfully. One of the main attributes of the MFA program is that it turns this on its head. The MFA is transparent, open to the outside, to the "real world", including to what's called the market conditions, the multitude of information and globalization processes. If earlier I was talking about a greenhouse, then it is one that allows the artists to start testing the water.
 
But I wanted to ask you guys, what is important to you in the MFA studies? 
 
Nir: I came to the program because in a way I wanted to get back to working in an organized manner. At the time I felt I was spreading myself thin over several areas, and decided to take a two years time out and focus solely on making art.

Your time here, for instance, is very intensive, and the program helped you engage in art "full time" for two years. You won't give that up so easily later on. An artist's existence in Israel is so difficult, completely devoting yourself to working in the studio, developing work discipline and so on. A supportive work environment can give you a serious leap forward.

We form a community here; there are encounters, connections between people, friendships. A milieu of three, four people you can have a dialogue with has an immense importance to every artist. 
 
Ravit: The difference is radical, in comparison to the MFA, the BFA is like a sheltered greenhouse.

That is the way it is in every art school, friendships, conversations, and suddenly it ends: someone gets married, someone else leaves the country, you go on your separate ways - real life begins. I thought of the program as a place that creates a meeting, an arena that encourages dialogue.
[…]

Nir: When you describe your artistic career, you describe important historical moments as completely random. It sounds like a moment in which all sorts of things might happen by accident….

You can't really know how things work. Today, 2010, someone might come and be interested in something you did in the 80s. We talk of a network, and there are a lot of "players" in this world. There are people who come and look for art that follows the "right" recipes of the moment, and of course there are artists who deliver. I think that an artist should do what he does, not comply with a system or with current trends. If the work is serious, there will come a time when someone will show an interest in it – I have a profound faith in this – you can not stop good, important art, even if you will find it in 20 years time. The question is what sort of horizons you are aiming for.  
 
Nir: Oftentimes we are presented with the demand or statement, mostly from visitors from abroad, concerning political art. It seems to be a demand that comes up in the art world in general; I would like you to address this point, both as an artist and as a teacher.
 
A few months ago I gave a talk at Yale university masters program. One of the students, presumably one with political awareness, said to me: "don't you thing that the plywood and constructions scattered over the space are about the settlements?" that was his interpretation, and I answered: "yes, if that is what you look for in an Israeli artist, so be it." My work asks questions about the site, it relates to the place, it raises questions concerning location, and concerning my location, and hopefully the viewer's, it requires an attentive reading of the reality.
 
The thing is, Israel is constantly in the headlines, people who come here from other countries already have a preconception of "what is Israel". We are all more or less politically minded citizens, more or less active, and the question of the relation between art and the "the situation" always comes up. Does someone living in Israel have the right to love, to have kids and to create, for instance, without thinking only about the "situation"? In what ways is art related to the time and reality, to the here and now? Can it be something that has a more intricate connection with reality, or does it have to follow the images, conditions and language dictated by the media?
 
You guys are complaining that you study too much philosophy and the like, and the question of the connection between artistic developed in the studio and theory is a similar question. I believe that art is an expression of a thought, a product of a certain conceptual structure, it has a theoretical dimension. It could be that while an artist is developing new ideas in the studio, a theoretician or philosopher is analyzing and formulating a parallel or similar insight with his own tools. There are plenty examples in the history of culture.  
 
Nir: This also has potential traps just like the political traps.
 
There are these viewers and experts who come equipped with preconceived systems and mechanisms, who get a kick out of identifying art that answers their expectations. Reality is so complex. I have never accepted the view that you can read something in a simplistic? way, not on the artistic level and not on the political level.  
 
Hila Laviv: There is something that often comes up in your talks - making art without a serious intent. Can you elaborate on that? 
 
Art has a dimension of adventure, imagination and play that requires freedom. Today, a good artist is an educated artist, he knows what he knows, he reads, learns and teaches himself. After all, everyone is interested in different things – someone reads literature, someone else reads economics, each one builds a world. When an artist goes to the studio, that knowledge is the background. You don’t work with that knowledge in an awkward way, which may lead to academism. You work with something else entirely. You work with the knowledge you have accumulated, with your own history, a world that you have built for yourself, but with the ability to kick it aside and shake everything up. Art is created out of the tension between these and other aspects.
 
Being an artist is a way of life. And the question is whether you keep growing and evolving and living when you are 30, 40, 60 and older. Arie Aroch, for instance "had arrived" only at the age of sixty something; or Jasper Johns, his recent works are breathtaking, and you can see he is in a new place.  
 
Dana Yoeli: How do you do it?
 
Artists have a big apatite, if you have exhibited at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, you want to exhibit at the MOMA. There is always more. The thing is, you also have to want more in your works, and to what extent are you willing to move, to take risks. There aren't any recipes. It is not that simple.  
 
Nir: In a conversation we recently had with a guest, he presented us with two questions that can be summed up as: "who are you?" and "what do you want?" Considering the possible replies we were given were basically "Israeli" and "a career", I would like to develop a slightly different conversation, which might discover different bifurcations.
 
There are all sorts of artists. We've talked about that, about inventing yourself anew, and it always, at any given moment, includes criticizing what you have done so far. All my perceptions of teaching developed from reflecting on my experiences. You assume in advance that it is not completely possible to be free from who you are, your history, language, the world is not completely open. I knowingly accept these limitation as a given, out of the desire to do something I have not done in the past, something that is new to me, that surprises me. The question is how can you be free, innovate, and invent within the frame of what you have got.
 
In the late 70s for instance, I was deeply engaged with a kind of conceptual Minimalist sculpture.  At a certain moment, there were things that I did not find satisfying, personally. I lacked uncertainty, something more elaborate and unpredictable, complexity. I am a true believer in intuition. A thought can start from a physical sensory feeling, "I can't stand that color", for instance, or from the feeling and understanding that a certain route had exhausted itself, or from a desire to go in the opposite direction to the one you have walked in so far. To act out of the combination of artistic instincts, understanding and analysis.
 
Oftentimes you can go backwards, rather than start with a predefined concept. A route that might sound "reactionary", but at a specific moment it is an important option. The arguments may sound articulate and organized in retrospect, but at the time it was a hysterical, even scary, period. Conceptualization can be formulated in parallel with the artwork, or be formed in its aftermath, an artist today has to read and know, but most of all I think it is important to know how to give knowledge its place.
 
I don’t think it happens in a "commissioned" mechanistic manner; "traps", like you said earlier, Nir. The intuitive reactions and sensory reactions, knowledge, taste, all sorts of things go into it, and you say, it either works or it doesn't work for me, things that are difficult to put your finger on in real time, hard to identify them and you are taking your chances working with them.