"Museum on the Seam", located between East and West Jerusalem, was selected last month by The New York Times as one of the outstanding art institutions in the world. A good enough reason to go and see the new exhibition showing there, which explores the interface between man and nature from political and economic perspectives.

Sometimes, the accommodation is no less important than its guests. "Museum on the Seam", where the group exhibit "NatureNation" is currently being shown, is a prime example of that. This not so large museum, located not very far from the seam area between West and East Jerusalem, was founded ten years ago, and has been offering since then a social and political agenda to be found nowhere else in Israel. The resolute guiding lines of its curators, combined with the hot shot names of the Israeli and international artists exhibiting there, caught the attention of the editors of the prestigious New York Times. Last month, the newspaper selected the "Museum on the Seam" as one of "29 places that will open your eyes and blow your mind", and as "a place that can change the way we see and the way we think."

Until a year ago, "Museum on the Seam" presented a series of group exhibitions, whose common denominator was human rights. Last year the museum widened its scope and began addressing the issue of the relations between people and between them and their environment. The exhibition "HeartQuake", put up in 2008, explored our emotional contention with the environment. The current exhibition, "NatureNation", examines the interface between man, nature and the environment, from political and economic perspectives. The exhibition includes many artists, some of them eminent names in Israel and abroad, such as the Israeli Michal Rovner, Micha Ullman and Dani Karavan, and international artists such as the German movie director, Wim Wenders.

It is not accidental that The New York Times pointed to the Museum as the next hot item. It seems that at "Museum on the Seam" they know how to correspond with issues that have become very popular in contemporary art and in art events since 9/11: terrorism, environmental pollution, war, death of nature and dying of the natural. Furthermore, they succeed in corresponding not only with the post modern apocalypses that engage contemporary art, but also with the aesthetics that characterizes this type of art. Most of the works in this exhibition are heavily influenced by journalistic and news aesthetics, and by video clips and cinema.

Unlike large retrospective exhibitions, which examine the creative process of the artist and demand patience, the group exhibition "NatureNation" has a zappy flickering quality to it, even in the viewer's perspective. Group exhibitions can easily become a boring flop, like zapping between a choice of lousy channels. "NatureNation", on the other hand, offers an intriguing, flowing and inviting zapping, and presents the viewers with a vibrant and energetic selection of works. The works are extremely accessible, both to connoisseurs and to dilettantes, and yet they are not offensive to the intelligence.

There is something pleasing about the existence of "Museum on the Seam", which could easily have remained on the seam, removed from the center, but instead has bypassed the big and veteran museums and has succeeded in catching the eye of the center. True, it does so by awareness to international art events, but it also takes upon itself an important role that only few here do: it addresses the immediate environment, its pollutions and wrongdoings, and strives to bind us to it.

"NatureNation",

"Museumon the Seam" Supported by the von Holtzbrinck family, Germany