Israeli artists strike gold at the Tower of David

A new exhibition pairing contemporary Israeli art with ancient gold artifacts is launching the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum’s year-long cultural program marking the 60th anniversary of the city’s reunification.

“Gold — Touches of Gold in Contemporary Israeli Art” features works by 16 Israeli artists from three generations, shown together with ancient gold jewelry, coins and other archaeological finds, exploring humanity’s enduring fascination with the precious metal.

The exhibition, which opened at a gala on Oct. 29, runs through March 2027. Marie Shek curated the show; Ravit Nenner-Soriano curated its archaeological display.

The participating artists are Elham Rokni, Nelly Agassi, Moshe Gershuni, Aram Gershuni, Alma Gershuni, Dafna Shalom, Leor Grady, Elena Ceretti Stein, Yoram Chisin, Yifat Bezalel, Miriam Cabessa, Yoav Brener, Lilac Sasson, Joshua Borkovsky, Gabriel Klasmer and Mosh Kashi.

Their works employ gold leaf, gold powder, metallic paint, threads and fabrics, as well as materials that imitate gold, to examine themes including holiness, power, identity, migration, memory, tradition and belonging.

“The bond between Jerusalem and gold runs deep, from the Midrash and Jewish tradition to the city’s very name in song,” said Eilat Lieber, director and chief curator of the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum.

“But ‘Gold’ reaches beyond history. It speaks to something timeless in the human spirit: the yearning for what is pure, true and eternal, a yearning that grows strongest in times of hardship and uncertainty,” she said.

Lieber said the works “search for light within darkness, for the spark at the heart of things,” adding that “it is in the tension between shadow and beauty that they lift us from the everyday toward the sublime.”

“As we open the 60th anniversary year of Jerusalem’s reunification, the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum continues to tell the story of this city through its contrasts: the fleeting and the eternal, creation and preservation,” she said. “‘Gold’ adds a vital contemporary layer to that story, one alive with Israeli talent and inspiration.”

The museum, which opened in 1989 and completed a major renewal in 2023, is housed in Jerusalem’s ancient citadel near Jaffa Gate. Its archaeological remains stretch from the Hasmonean and Herodian periods through the Byzantine, Mamluk and Ottoman eras.

Alongside the contemporary art is a previously unseen collection of ancient gold jewelry, as well as gold coins from the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. The display presents gold as a material whose significance has endured even as the civilizations that prized it rose and fell.

The citadel itself has yielded gold from Jerusalem’s past. During excavations there in the 1980s, archaeologists uncovered a hoard of Byzantine-era gold coins — one of the first gold hoards found in an archaeological excavation in Jerusalem.

Among the contemporary works are those of the late Moshe Gershuni, one of Israel’s most influential artists, alongside pieces by his son, Aram Gershuni, and granddaughter, Alma Gershuni.

Moshe Gershuni used gold in abstract, expressive works addressing Jewish identity, memory, war, religion and nationalism. Aram Gershuni employs it differently, in realistic painting, where golden hair can evoke the halos of Renaissance art.

“Of course I have the great pride of a father being in the same exhibition as my daughter,” Aram Gershuni said.

Alma Gershuni, representing the family’s third generation of artists, combines classical techniques with a contemporary approach. Her work in the exhibition draws on “The Man with the Golden Helmet,” a painting long attributed to Rembrandt, in which light falls prominently on the helmet rather than the subject’s face.

“It’s a painting that I connected with deeply: the man, his gaze, and Rembrandt’s unusual choice to put the spotlight, the light, on the helmet and not the face of the man,” she said. “It’s very focused light, while the rest of the painting is very dark — so this is what inspired me.”

Other artists use gold to explore their own cultural and personal histories.

Rokni draws on imagery associated with Persian carpets and migration, connecting her Persian heritage with her identity as a contemporary Israeli artist. Agassi works with gold powder, threads, fabrics and jewelry, transforming soft, intimate materials into sculptural objects.

Shalom combines gold with Braille, using an image of two hands forming the word “we” to explore the relationship between sight and touch, and between the visible world and the language of the blind.

Grady employs traditional gold-thread embroidery associated with Yemenite Jewish culture to address memory, tradition and historical narratives he believes have been marginalized.

“Embroidery is an act of repetition,” Grady said. “As I repeat it again and again, this thin, fragile thread, so easily torn, becomes over time a mass of gold, a heap of strength.”

One work features the Hebrew word ga’agua, or longing, embroidered on raw linen alongside an image of the Sea of Galilee.

“We are in Jerusalem, speaking of ‘Jerusalem of Gold,’ and so perhaps we might also imagine a ‘Kinneret of Gold,’” Grady said. “Perhaps water is sacred. Perhaps the sacred lies in the chol, the sand and the everyday, and the everyday is sacred. Or perhaps it is life itself that is holy.”

Ceretti Stein incorporates gold into paintings influenced by Renaissance art and Eastern Orthodox icons, while Bezalel combines pencil and gold leaf in drawings that bring Christian iconography into dialogue with Jewish concepts of holiness.

For Cabessa, gold is associated with spirituality, renewal and healing. Brener uses its changing appearance in different light to encourage viewers to move around his works, connecting physical perception with cosmic and metaphysical themes.

Sasson uses gold leaf in works dealing with Iran, partly covering pages from books on Iranian art and architecture. Borkovsky uses gold leaf and powder in meditative paintings, including works from his “Kaaba” series.

Klasmer uses both gold and imitation gold in his explorations of color, line and texture, while Kashi presents a porcelain sphere covered in gold leaf as a focal point for contemplation.

For Chisin, gold is closely connected with loss, trauma and memory. Although he grew up surrounded by art, he began working as an artist only 16 years ago.

“I divide my time between Israel, Paris and the Hamptons. Each of these places is central to my inspiration, because the light in each is so distinct,” he said. “Here, the light is harsh and intense; elsewhere, it is softer, much like the differences between the places themselves.”

For the exhibition, he created a work titled “Or.”

“In Hebrew, or means light; in French, it means gold,” Chisin said.

“Gold” also has personal significance for its curator.

“For me, presenting this exhibition here, at the Tower of David, closes a circle in my career,” Shek said.

She began her curatorial career at the museum about 30 years ago and has since curated some 50 exhibitions in Israel and abroad. She said “Gold” will be her last.

“Gold is a healing material and a symbol of eternal beauty. It has captivated me throughout my life,” Shek said.

“In this exhibition I sought to bridge my dreams with the reality in which we live, and to create a space that reminds us that even within a complex reality, there is room for beauty — and for hope that the world can be more beautiful.”

The museum’s program of cultural and educational events continues through the Hebrew year 5787, leading up to the 60th anniversary of Jerusalem’s reunification in 2027.