Melting Point at the Museum for Islamic Art shows what jewellery can be

The collection moniker is something of a spoiler, as it points clearly in the direction of the technical dynamics involved in the creative process and invokes the multifarious baggage backdrop to the stylistically expansive spread.

It is not the artworks that initially grab your attention as you enter the display hall on the ground floor of the museum, simply because you don’t see them straight off. You don’t see the glass cabinets or their contents from the doorway due to the strategic placement of towering off-white drapes that descend from the high ceiling, imbuing the room with a cozy, almost homey ambiance.

One might add that this hands-on act engages more than the passive onlooker experience, however impressive, emotive, and inspiring the works on show may be.

I tell exhibition producer Naama Ben-Porat that I don’t recall a showing of that magnitude in the artistic field in question in recent years. “This is a major event in general,” she concurs. “I don’t think there has ever been an event on this scale of contemporary jewelry in Israel, even at the Israel Museum.”

But the Melting Point exhibition is very much about the here and now. I put it to Ben-Porat that should one want to convey an overview of the state of jewelry-making in Israel these days, the museum on the corner of Hapalmach Street would be the place to visit. The producer is happy to go along with that supposition.

“And we have jewelry artists at all stages of development. We have some very young artists who recently finished their formal studies, and we have quite a few masters in the field,” she adds, with more than a hint of collateral pride.

I learn that it is not just about the individual artist’s handle on aesthetics, philosophy, or style. “There are works here from different disciplines,” the producer says, adding that the scale of size is an operational factor here, too. “The association, with its many members, incorporates all the academies in Israel active in this field. There’s Bezalel and Shenkar [College of Engineering, Design and Art], and the Tel Hai Arts Institute. They’re all represented here. And there are people who work outside the academic sphere but are part of the [jewelry artists’] community.”

As you draw back the drapes, you discover a manifold slew of enticing pieces of all shapes, sizes, textures, hues, and intent. The ACMJI credo says it was founded “to establish and deepen public and professional knowledge in Israel of the field of jewelry-making and its cultural significance.” That is clearly a connecting thread among the hundred or so works in the showcases dotted around the room.

The first exhibit you encounter as you take a clockwise tour of the draped layout summarily dispenses with the broadly accepted definition of jewelry.

Avigail Capon’s An Open Call to Come Back Home is a generously proportioned effort made of uncoated iron wire. It looks like something between an unevenly fashioned vase and a lampshade made of a mesh of woven rattan.

“The weft thread intertwines with the warp threads and rises in a circular movement to form a single, unified vessel,” Capon says. There’s a poignant subtext to the creation. “In a world shaped by separation and division, this work reminds me of unity. The connection between us is invisible, even though we all emerged from the same melting point.” That’s quite an uplifting notion to home in on in these post-Oct. 7 days.

The conversation veers back toward the thematic arc, the interface not only between different materials and various stages of the magic of the creative process, but also between groups and their histories and modes of expression.

“The concept of the melting point refers to the moment at which a metal reaches a precise temperature, yields to heat, and becomes liquid, flexible, and open to reshaping,” the association sets out in its declaration of intent.

“It is a liminal threshold at which all possibilities are reopened. In the exhibition before you, this moment becomes a space in which identities, opinions, and experiences may shift, merge, and form a multidimensional picture.”

The human confluence dynamic and evolution are firmly lodged in the core. “The work weaves a living dialogue between nature and culture, past and present, and between what has been lost and what begins anew – a delicate process of disassembly and reconstruction, of loss and becoming.” That sensibility is, naturally and painfully, front and center of everyday life in Israel, and of the Jewish people in general.

It also comes into the nuts and bolts of professions, trades, and crafts that are definitively portable and, as such, suit the likes of Jews who have led a nomadic existence across the millennia. “Historically, that has led to Jews taking up jewelry,” Ben-Porat notes. “That also means there is great variety [due to the cultural milieu and baggage collected by Jews on the move]. That also leads to cultural and ethnic melting points.”

The latter, the producer says, continues to come to fruition in our multifaceted national mosaic. “There is clearly a very broad representation of all the ethnic subgroups that gravitated to this part of the world throughout history and created something new.” There were, however, philosophical and tangible constraints on the expansion of purview, which, says Ben-Porat, has undergone something of a metamorphosis.

“Historically, jewelry has been narrowly defined and, by and large, involved the use of metals. In the past few decades, there has been a turning point; a new spirit has emerged. In terms of contemporary jewelry-making, there has been a significant release, freeing up the discipline in terms of the substances employed and the form, and conceptually, too. Some [of the artists] feed off a textual basis before they start creating. Others are craftsmen and women.”

That much is patently clear from the current display at the museum, which crosses several disciplinary divides into areas one might not normally identify with jewelry-making. “It is not just about jewelry per se,” Ben-Porat observes.

“The artists approach jewelry through the study of the body; some examine vessels and everyday implements we use. There is also the history of jewelry and, of course, each artist brings their own story to their work.” Naturally.

And the gifts of Mother Nature come into the jewelry fray as they have done for millennia. One particularly striking and evocative item that caught my eye, and heart, was an untitled effort comprising three brooches, deftly crafted by Alma Lion. The barbaric Hamas attack down South and its continually chilling aftermath come back into view.

It is a delicate, almost achingly appealing triad set that combines man-made endeavor with olive tree sprigs. “The brooches were created in October 2023. The encounter between the cold, sharp metal and the olive branch – a living material that holds within it the potential to break, distort, and change – emerged almost on its own,” Lion explains. “The symbolic meanings surface naturally in this meeting of strength and vulnerability, loss and hope.”

Incorporating natural elements suggests that an ongoing, unfolding continuum is in store. Lion pleads guilty to the intentional subtext. “The work continues to change and carries the marks of time: a memory of what once was and a testimony to all that endures. It offers a renewed reflection on the reality that has formed – a layered space holding within it memory, rupture, and repair, transience and security – and raises questions of identity and the values that shape us, both as individuals and as a society.”

Dania Chelminsky also takes a lead from the natural world in her Snail’s Dialogue work, for which she used sterling silver, shells, and cold enamel. But there are powerful kinetics behind the ostensibly harmonious endeavor, once again alluding to the most recent shock to our already shaken system. “My works respond to rupture, a ‘melting point’ in a turbulent, dynamic, and changing world,” Chelminsky declares. “They explore personal and national identity, migration, rootedness, and survival. I fuse materials from different worlds into new identities. The series deals with the ability to survive in extreme conditions.”

Eden Herman Rosenblum takes a quizzical, somewhat dark-humored approach to the process behind her craft. The brass work comprises an off-kilter spiral-shaped base with spindly slim extensions rising heavenward. These are reflected in the name Herman Rosenblum chose for her efforts – Stoor, as in “roots” in reverse. That makes complete visual and corporeal sense. She also references the exhibition banner while addressing some immersive thoughts about where we are currently.

“The ‘melting point’ marks a moment of transition, when a solid substance transforms and becomes open to change. Likewise, Israeli society is undergoing a societal melting point – a shift in its collective state of being. Roots, long symbols of stability and belonging, were uprooted and left exposed to the elements on Oct. 7. Yet from this uprooting transformation emerges roots growing upward and embody a human fusion, where upheaval turns into an opportunity for renewal and growth.”

There are more positive vibes and hopeful pointers in a healthier, calmer direction elsewhere across the display. Einat Leader, for example, cites from biblical realms in the accompanying notes to her Wax Pit Birds arrangement. “A dove returning with an olive leaf in its mouth heralded a new, safe, and better life,” she says. “These birds symbolize locality, continuity, peace, and carry a prayer for the end of all wars.”

That optimism or, simply, wishful expectancy for an upturn in our existential circumstances and quality of life here is reprised in Hope Necklace, created by Noa Liran. She follows a harmonious neighborly line. She says her necklace-shaped work, crafted in 2022, comprises “pumice stones that crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Greece to the shores of Israel, cotton thread, dried petals, [and] glue.”

Liran waxes eloquently and poetically as she feeds off the properties of her chosen components. “In the fusion between light lava stones, air-soaked and porous, and butterflies made of orchid petals, a delicate promise of hope is woven.”