A shot of gold: Curator Marie Shek closes a circle at the Tower of David Museum Jerusalem

Curator Marie Shek opens her 50th exhibition, 'Gold: Touches of Gold in Contemporary Israeli Art,' at the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum, running until March 2027. The show features 16 Israeli artists working with gold materials alongside rare archaeological gold finds. Shek describes the exhibition as closing a personal and professional circle that began 30 years ago with a failed proposal at the same venue.

Curator Marie Shek has opened her 50th exhibition, 'Gold: Touches of Gold in Contemporary Israeli Art,' at the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum, running until March 2027. The show brings together 16 Israeli artists who work with gold leaf, gold powder, gold thread, and metallic paint, alongside rare archaeological gold finds, most never shown publicly before. For Shek, the exhibition closes a circle: her first planned show in 1996 was for the Tower of David but fell through when the museum director lost his job. She raised NIS 10,000 and mounted it at the Artists' House instead. Now, 30 years and 49 exhibitions later, she returns to the Citadel. Shek describes the exhibition as a deliberate departure from her usual 'kick in the stomach' style, aiming instead for gold to 'heal, to be a friend.' The display is spare and calm, with no video, and took four years to assemble, partly delayed by the war. Works include a triptych by Moshe Gershuni and his son Aram's 'Girl with Golden Hair.'