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Exhibitions at the juncture of art and history are curious hybrids, yet they continue to play a serious role in the curatorial repertoire within art museums. Generally, such synthetic displays concern themselves with the formation of communal or national cultures and link societal yearnings with art and various types of visual representation. Two examples that appeared last summer were the exhibitions "Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era" at the Tate Liverpool and "The New Hebrews: 100 Years of Art in Israel" at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. While radically different in subject matter and installation strategies, both used photography, posters, documents and video art, as well as documentary video, painting and sculpture.

"Summer of Love" told the history of the late 1960s and early '70s in the cultural matrix of three cities: London, New York and San Francisco. The range of materials and images showed the remarkable exchanges between popular culture and art, between morality and politics. "The New Hebrews" presented a visual narrative of the establishment and evolution of esthetic cultures in an emerging Israeli society that only became a nation in 1948. Its century-long time span contrasted greatly with the examination of the few years that heralded the epoch of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Despite the differences in the amount of time covered and the nature of their subjects, the two exhibitions were remarkably similar in scale. Both histories were undergirded by utopian ideals that often went astray. Both installations were epic in their ambitions and their proportions. Both were well-researched, extensive and, not least, heartfelt explorations of their subjects. They also were case studies in how the display of heterogeneous materials forces curators to traverse a complex and slippery terrain. What becomes privileged--art or historical document, esthetic or idea? Can artworks shed light on society and politics without dependence upon lengthy and complicated texts? Can one make textual documents and documentary footage speak emotively to the visitor who must navigate a gigantic show?

"The New Hebrews" was organized by Doreet LeVitte Harten, an Israeli-born independent curator living in Germany, with Yigal Zalmona, chief curator at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem (the partner institution of the Martin-Gropius-Ban). The exhibition's vigor and scale matched its venue, well known for mega art presentations like "Zeitgeist," the seminal 1982 exploration of Neo-Expressionism. The historical and thematic nature of the show, as manifest in the over 700 works displayed, seemed to reflect LeVitte Harten's exposure to what has been called a Northern Romantic tradition of exhibitions, formulated by auteur curators such as the late Harald Szeemann. (1)

Few German newspapers and television stations failed to cover "The New Hebrews." As newsworthy as the exhibition itself was the fact that its staging served as a celebration of 40 years of diplomatic relations between the former West Germany and Israel. Such historic context provided fodder for German journalists--a group of whom had been invited to visit Israel prior to the exhibition's opening. Naturally, bits of trenchant, predominantly political criticism emerged in print, especially from those privileged to take the Israel junket. These advance stories were mainly about the Israeli political situation as seen through cultural activity. In the wake of the opening, however, most critics--focusing now on the exhibition--were impressed by its dramatic comprehensiveness and by its thoughtful realization.

Some journalists urged Germans to see the exhibition to become acquainted with Israeli culture as an alternative--even antidote--to the prevailing emphasis in Germany on the European Jewish civilization that was largely destroyed by the Holocaust. In fact the presentation of "The New Hebrews" coincided with several other commemorations, namely the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the opening of Peter Eisenman's Holocaust memorial. Situated on a plot of land the size of a standard city block just outside the Brandenburg gate, Eisenman's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is within walking distance of the Martin-Gropius-Bau. The memorial served as a perfect site for a photo-op of the joint visit of the presidents of Germany and Israel, a solemn moment intimately connected to the celebrations for the vernissage of "The New Hebrews." Of course, such associations further reinforced the Jewish vs. Israeli (dead vs. living) cultural divide suggested by the exhibition. Coincidentally, this opposition also serves as part of a master narrative for Israeli culture, and can be found in art and history museums in Israel.

The press repeated a dialectical view of Israeli culture as evinced in the exhibition. Among the dualities frequently acknowledged by the show were dreams and traumas, myths and cliches, utopias and realities, optimism and cynicism. Another set of oppositions was generated by the exhibition's ideological spheres. These included the recurring tensions between orientalist and modernist styles (a specialty of Zalmona's), polar notions of the intellectual and the corporeal and, not least, the clash between the sacred and profane. In press interviews and in interpretive texts, LeVitte Harten continually underscored the overwhelmingly secular nature of Israeli society, one of the show's central tenets. Thus the focus seemed more on modern Tel Aviv than on historical Jerusalem.