Points of Origin / Screening of a short film, a conversation with the director and a guided walk through the exhibition Year Zero
A special evening combining cinema, conversation, and exhibition.
Year Zero was a term used in European public and intellectual discourse after World War II to describe a moment of total rupture—physical, moral, and perceptual. The past was seen as impossible to continue, and the present as a forced point of departure for rebuilding society, identity, and historical responsibility.
On the eve of World War II, Dr. Karl Schwarz, the first director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, embarked on a final and desperate journey to Europe in an attempt to save a work of art he had encountered in his youth in Berlin. He located the work in Amsterdam and persuaded its owner to send it to Tel Aviv. This work, along with thousands of others rescued by Schwarz, formed the foundation of the museum’s modern art collection.
The event will include a screening of the film A Story That Begins with Three Rooms (directed by Arnon Goldfinger) and a visit to the exhibition Year Zero.
The evening will open with the film screening, followed by a conversation with director Arnon Goldfinger about the creative process: the point of departure, the materials, and the way a story is constructed from space, memory, and archival sources.
This will be followed by an independent walk through the exhibition Year Zero, with special attention given to selected works that appear both in the film and in the exhibition. The exhibition features works by major artists, including Alexander Archipenko, Marc Chagall, and Käthe Kollwitz, and for the first time brings these stories together to mark eighty years since the end of World War II.
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A Story That Begins with Three Rooms, 2022 | Director: Arnon Goldfinger | Israel, 2022 | 24 minutes | Hebrew, with Hebrew and English subtitles
In 1933, Dr. Karl Schwarz was invited by Tel Aviv’s then mayor, Meir Dizengoff, to serve as the director of the first art museum in Palestine—the Tel Aviv Museum. Constructed as a collage of archival materials and works of art, the film traces the story of the museum’s founding and reveals the chilling connection between the museum’s growth and the tragedy that struck European Jewry in the 1930s and 1940s.
The film was produced as part of the collection Four Films and a Museum, which brings together four cinematic voices offering diverse and unexpected perspectives on the museum. The short documentary films were created in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
The film was produced in collaboration with the New Fund for Cinema and Television (NGO) and by Shula and Dana Productions.
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Note: This event is in Hebrew only.
The number of participants is limited | Advance reservations are required for all participants.
Participation in the tour includes entrance ticket to the Museum