Art at Mishkenot Sha'ananim

At one of the seminars at Mishkenot Sha'ananim, author David Grossman remarked that during his stay here for the purpose of writing, he requested that the curtains be drawn and all the openings closed so that the view would not distract him and prevent him from concentrating on his creative work. It is indeed difficult to ignore the beauty of Mishkenot Sha’ananim or to compete with it or with the rich collection of works of art that adorn the walls of the residence. The photographic works of Israeli artists included in the Mishkenot collection are displayed in the interior public spaces and guest rooms of Mishkenot Sha'ananim and emphasize the tension between the old and the new—contemporary art versus the immortal landscape of the city’s walls—which is also the story of Jerusalem.

Artists in Mishkenot

Sharon Yaari

Born in 1966 in Israel.

Sharon Yaari is a graduate of the Department of Photography at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and holds a master's degree from the University of Derby in the UK. His work has won him awards, such as the Nathan Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize, the Minister of Culture Award, and the Jeanette and George Jaffin Prize of the America–Israel Cultural Foundation.

Yaari's large color photographs and later black-and-white works examine the physical and human landscapes of Israel while examining the boundaries of the photographic medium and addressing its development. His camera, which lingers on seemingly trivial moments and marginal objects and landscapes, lends them a menacingly poetic sculptural quality. His gaze breaks down into details the actual components of the local and common, and at the same time lets them slip away and yearn for another place through the treatment of color and light. With a compassionate, sharp, and deceptive gaze, he looks at the utopian and not really possible Zionist ideology of the Israeli space, which attempts to become and contain a European illusion in the Middle East.

Sharon Yaari