The Protocols of Bezalel's Young, July 2012
Kfir Mehatzri, My Studio, 2010, Digital Photography, 20.3 by 15.2 cm.
The present issue, summer 2012, is the sixth out of the Journal’s twenty five issues to be dedicated to the work of students at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.
As a cover image, we have chosen a photograph by Kfir Mehatzri – a second year student at the department of Visual Communication. This photograph presents the first stage in a work process; a process that results in a charcoal drawing on canvas. The process in its entirety has been recorded in photographs and was complemented by a text – both of which are published in the Hebrew side of this issue. In choosing this photograph, which shows Kfir’s table at the onset of the work process, as the cover image for an issue that is published as part of the final exhibition at Bezalel, we wish to foreground the long journeys the academy’s students undergo in creating their final projects. Undoubtedly, the journey and its culmination cannot be separated – the products of work are imprinted by the challenges and achievements of the work process itself. Nonetheless, this specific photograph was taken before Kfir began studying at Bezalel, as part of an independent art project he undertook on his own, and this understanding highlights integral issues as to the role of academic institutions and especially as to the role of its teachers: their right or responsibility to teach, to set guidelines and boundaries, to mentor, to judge, criticize and praise, to offer a language and in turn learn one.
The works included in this issue – academic articles and virtual exhibitions – are the products of students, but also of fully mature and creative thinkers and artists. It is a point of pride for the department of History and Theory to be able to bring to the Journal’s audience their distinct and individual voices, and at the same time to showcase the diverse range of activities that take place at Bezalel.