No tour to Israel is complete without an art tour. Tel Aviv is a culture and arts center with a museum for everybody’s taste. If you’d rather not go to a traditional museum, we’ve got great news for you. You can take an alternative art tour, visiting unusual art spaces and galleries, artists’ studios, or streets filled with graffiti by incredibly talented street artists. If you’d like to learn some Hebrew through art, you can do that too! Wherever you turn in Tel Aviv, there is art welcoming you, so here are some fun art tours for you to enjoy.
Museums
Museum lovers, rejoice! There are so many museums in Tel Aviv for you. Visit the national institutions like the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, or Beit Hatfutsot: The Museum of the Diaspora. Then check out some smaller, more specialist museums such as the house of one of Israel’s most influential artists, the Reuven Rubin Museum, or Beit Ha’ir: the Museum of the History of Tel Aviv-Yafo, situated in the remarkable building of the former Town Hall. There are also many fantastic museums in the towns surrounding Tel Aviv, such as Holon’ Design Museum, or the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art.
Kiryat Hamelacha
Welcome to the place where, astonishingly, almost half of Israel’s art is created. It’s the true art center of the country, the goal of which is to turn the general public into art lovers. Here you’ll see both the established artists and the beginners, who appreciate the lower rent, as well as the mid-century architecture and the size of this place. Suitably located in a derelict industrial neighborhood in south Tel Aviv, Kiryat Hamelacha is home to a number of galleries, unique street art, and more than three hundred artist studios. You’ll find here a social gallery that is home to exhibitions, artist walls, lectures, cultural events, etc., as well as a visitor center that will give you the information you need, maps of the neighborhood, updated lists of exhibitions and ‘open studios’, etc.
Street Art
Now, here’s a brilliant tour for all you art lovers. The colorful Florentin and Nachalat Binyamin are home to numerous world-renowned graffiti and street artists. Here you can see many different types of highly unique street art, through which you’ll learn about the lifestyle and contemporary events in Israel. You can even read poems on the walls, where literature is merged with graffiti. Graffiti is illegal in Israel but is tolerated in specific areas. Most graffiti artists remain anonymous, but you can learn to recognize the author of a piece by their signature or their theme. Some of the best-known artists are Sened (known for his geometrical characters ‘Kufsonim’ – Hebrew for ‘boxes’), Dede (whose most prominent themes include animals and band-aids in his exploration of loneliness, identity, escapism, etc.), Know Hope (whose characters have their hearts in different places, or hold a white flag, and he signs his pieces with a small pigeon), Jonathan Kis-Lev (an artist and peace activists who created various unique artworks, with a goal to encourage people to live happy and fulfilled lives) and many, many more wonderful artist, each with a unique artistic style.
StreetWise Hebrew
It is a fact that we learn more and faster when we’re focused when we engage all of our senses, and when we’re simply having fun. If you’re learning Hebrew, especially phrases not found in guidebooks, isn’t an art tour a fantastic way to do it? Hebrew is merged with street art everywhere in Tel Aviv, and Guy Sharett, aka StreetWise Hebrew, can translate the graffiti for you, teach you how to pronounce it, when and how to use it, the etymology of the phrase, the contemporary cultural and political contexts in which it’s used, and why it’s relevant to artists.
Under 1,000 Gallery
Located in the amazing Florentin, ‘Under A Thousand’ is an independent gallery, owned by Eli Edri whose main goal is to bring great art to the general public. The gallery itself is charming, inspired by the 17th-century art shows where artists would come together in small spaces to present their pieces, and true to that inspiration, the gallery’s collections are superb. You’ll find original pieces by up-and-coming artists, world-famous ones, and everything in between. Another unique aspect of this gallery is that the highest possible price for any artwork is $1000.
Urban Secret Gallery
In the heart of Florentin, the area known for its street art and cultural diversity, behind a synagogue and through a hidden passageway, there is an old warehouse that was transformed into a brilliant street art gallery and a multifunctional creative space that includes a concept store and workshops venue. Daniel Siboni, creative director and co-owner of this gallery, is a prominent photographer who previously worked with fashion giants such as Vogue and Marie Claire, but was soon captivated by urban art. In the Urban Secret Gallery, you’ll find amazing street photography, spray paintings, art installations, prints, and much more by many artists in the field of urban art, including unique pieces by Siboni.
