I'm thrilled to tell you that one of the most talked about exhibitions of recent years is coming to New York, and it's a wonderful chance for anyone who missed it in Israel.

This December, The Jewish Museum in New York opens (M)otherland (Eretz Em) by the Israeli artist Ruth Patir, who was chosen to represent Israel at the 2024 Venice Biennale. For those who don't know the story: Patir and the two curators of the Israeli Pavilion, Mira Lapidot and Tamar Margalit, decided, in protest against the war, not to open the exhibition to the public until an agreement was reached for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. Those conditions were not met before the Biennale ended, and so the exhibition that had been prepared for the Israeli Pavilion in Venice never actually opened there.

Only in March 2025 was it shown for the first time, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

And now, The Jewish Museum in New York has acquired the entire exhibition, and it will be on view there from December 18, 2026 to June 7, 2027.

Without giving too much away: Ruth Patir is a new media artist who has worked for years with ancient fertility figurines from the Kingdom of Judah, connecting them to contemporary digital technology. After she was diagnosed as a carrier of the BRCA2 gene, Patir created a video installation that touches at once on the personal and the national: on the supreme value placed on motherhood in Israeli society, and on the feminist and universal question of the right and the duty to bring children into the world. (M)otherland follows the artist's personal journey, but in order to distance the story from herself, she chose a figurine from the Lachish region. Using a motion capture suit that records her body's movements, Patir transfers those movements onto the digital figurine, which becomes a kind of avatar of her and moves across the screen in her place.

After October 7, another layer was added to the work, of loss, mourning, and motherhood, which made the project even more charged and relevant. Ruth created a work titled The Mourners, which was the only work that could be seen through the window of the closed pavilion in Venice. In it, figurines are seen crying out the cry of bereavement and pain of mothers around October 7 and the war that followed. The ancient figurines are the broken mothers, who represent the pain of us all.

This is exactly the kind of exhibition I love: it moves intelligently between the personal and the collective, between humor and seriousness, it is intelligent and visually striking, and above all, it stays with you and keeps provoking thought long after the visit.

A small disclaimer: the focus on fertility and BRCA may be difficult for BRCA carriers and for women coping with fertility challenges.

📍 The Jewish Museum, New York
📅 December 18, 2026 to June 7, 2027

Mark your calendar. I definitely intend to go ✨