About Madaf
Madaf, a website dedicated to the art of the artist's book, features an index and a monthly magazine dedicated to local artist’s books. Madaf seeks to promote the Israeli contribution to this field in the local and international art arena. The website is divided into a comprehensive and continuously updated searchable archive that encourages browsing and research; and a monthly magazine with in-depth interviews, essays and recommendations by researchers of culture, artists, editors, and curators. Madaf was established in collaboration with Leafing magazine, Artport, and Mevo’ot: the Joav BarEl Ideas Fund to promote the local field of artist's books.
About Artport
In the belief that artists and art have a role in generating positive change in society, the Artport Contemporary Art Center was established in 2011 with the aim of being a home for artists at significant stages in their professional development. Artport works to promote and nurture contemporary art in Israel through a residency program for artists from Israel and abroad as well as through a non-profit gallery and extensive activities that include an annual artist’s book fair, exhibitions, artist meetings, professional workshops, reading groups, screenings, and more. The Artport Artist’s Book Fair was founded in the winter of 2015 and has since become a tradition that attracts thousands of visitors to a weekend of books and art. Artport was founded by Jason Arison, Chairman of the Ted Arison Family Foundation and operates with the Foundation’s full support, and that of its management: Jason Arison, Shlomit de Vries, Rachel Cohen, and Yifat Shmuelevitz.
About Mevo'ot
Mevo’ot: The Joav BarEl Ideas Foundation was established in 2021 to promote contemporary artistic actions inspired by the late Joav BarEl. The foundation works to create and promote diverse spaces for discourse about and with art, and to make BarEl’s work accessible to future generations. As part of its annual open call, Mevo’ot supports art platforms working in the virtual space, which strengthens communities in the Israeli art field, and expands its reception locally and worldwide. Mevo’ot is supported by Joel and Neta BarEl and by the extended BarEl family.
About Leafing
Leafing is an online magazine promoting a sensitive discourse about the artist's book. It was founded by Shiraz Grinbaum and Yair Meyuhas in early 2020 as a supportive space for close-looking and in-depth dialogue about the alchemy of making an artist's book and its place in the creative process and in the local art field. Dozens of artists were interviewed and an active community of readers formed around the site. Encouraged by the initial reception, its founders decided to expand the magazine’s activity and realize its vision of a comprehensive and historical digital archive dedicated to the local artist's book field. Accordingly, in early 2021, Leafing joined Artport and the Mevo’ot Foundation in establishing Madaf.
Madaf Website Team
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Shiraz Grinbaum
Founder and Chief Editor
Shiraz is a founding editor of Leafing magazine dedicated to the local artist's book and the Madaf website. From 2021, she is the manager of Mevo’ot: The Joav BarEl Ideas Fund. She specializes in book editing and teaches photo editing, and serves as a consultant and advisor on artistic projects and for art and culture archives in various frameworks.
Shiraz Grinbaum is a cultural entrepreneur, artist, writer, and editor of artists’ books. She is the founder of Leafing magazine and the founding editor of the Madaf website. She serves as CEO and director of Mevo’ot: The Joav BarEl Ideas Fund, and is the founder of To Light Up A Home: Second Generation to War-Related PTSD.
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Vardit Gross
Founder & Editor
Vardit is the curator and manager of the Artport Art Center and Residency Program, within which the Artport Artist’s Book Fair operates. She worked as an art curator in the public sphere at the Creative Time organization in New York, and has written about contemporary art in newspapers in Israel and abroad.
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Yair Meyuhas
Founder
Yair is a founder of Leafing magazine dedicated to the local artist's book and the Madaf website. As a visual artist responsible for photographing the artist’s books on the website index, he brings his extensive knowledge accrued from a variety of practices from the world of performance and visual theater. Yair examines the dual role of the photographic act: as a record of artistic actions in the world and as a performative action in itself. Among his many works, he specializes in photographing art archives and creating visual covers for interdisciplinary festivals.
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Avigail Reiner
Editorial Team
Avigail Reiner is a graphic designer, a graduate of the Visual Communication department at Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem, and has a master's degree with honors in cultural studies from Tel Aviv University. She focuses on designing artist's books and catalogs and formulating a graphic language for exhibitions and cultural events. She is the winner of the Ministry of Culture award for 2017.
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Joy Bernard
Editorial Team
Joy Bernard (b. 1996) is a multidisciplinary artist, dancer, journalist, and art and dance critic who lives and works in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Her journalistic and literary writing is published in many newspapers and magazines, including the literature magazine "Granta", the newspaper "Haaretz", Portfolio magazine, The Jerusalem Post, The Art Newspaper, Flash Art, Collectors Agenda, and more. Joy frequently collaborates with other artists as a performer and dramaturge. She teaches writing, dance improvisation, and performance.
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Ori Druckman
Editorial Team
A cultural entrepreneur and a project manager of the Edmond de Rothschild Design Award. Works at the Shenkar Research Center for Design in Israel, and for several years has been a writer for Portfolio magazine.
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Yarden Stern
Editorial Team
Dr. Yarden Stern is an independent curator and a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He researches and writes on queer art, border spaces, and the Israeli family. He received his PhD from New York University. He teaches at the Faculty of the Arts at Tel Aviv University and in the Department of Cultural Studies at Sapir Academic College. He has curated exhibitions at Artport, the Jerusalem Artists House, The Edmond de Rothschild Center, among others, and his writing has appeared in a wide range of journals.
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Gal Hubara Bergman
Editorial Team
Gal Hubara Bergman is a journalist and art writer, researcher, and curator. She holds a BA in Art History and in the Multidisciplinary Program in the Arts from Tel Aviv University. She is currently pursuing an MA in Contemporary Art Theory at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Her writings have appeared in Portfolio magazine, the “Gallery” supplement of Haaretz, Erev Rav, and more.
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Meir Sadan
Site Programming
Meir Sadan is a designer and developer specializing in type design, typography, interactive digital media, and web development. He teaches typography and web design in the Department of Visual Communication at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and at additional institutions. Photo: Yuval Orbach.
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Nomi Geiger
Website Designer
Nomi Geiger is the co-founder of Studio Gimel2, a graphic design studio based in Tel-Aviv. The studio focuses on developing graphic design systems and books, mostly in the fields of arts and culture. She creates commercial projects alongside personal works and, in parallel, serves as Head of the Design Program in the Department of Visual Communication at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.
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Sharon Assaf
Translation and Localization
Sharon Assaf completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Art History at Tel Aviv University in 2004. She is an English arts and humanities editor and translator, working with institutions, museums, artists, curators, and researchers in Israel and abroad.
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Lital Megidish
Social Media
Little Megidish, a cultural entrepreneur and director of the Drift-Lab residency program at the Institute for Underwater Research, Haifa. Manager of social networks for leading cultural institutions and artists.
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Yael Moshe
Production
Yael has overseen diverse projects in the field of arts and culture in various institutions, including a museum of urban culture, a contemporary art gallery, and has worked independently with artists ,consulting on art projects and professional development. She joined Artport in 2016 and currently manages its residency program.
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Nitzan Gaon
Social Media
Social Media Manager at Artport, also responsible for the gallery and the tours held there. Previously managed the social media channels of several art institutions as well as individual artists, including Parasite and the Dina Recanati Foundation.
The Madaf team would like to thank: Yossi Balt and Anat Gilead from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cultural Diplomacy Division for their generous support in translating the site and making it accessible to an international audience; our inspiring web designers Nomi Geiger from Studio Gimel2 and Amitay Gilad; to Meir Sadan and Nir Shaked for the website's incredible programming; Michal Vaaknin for the loving support during the conception of the project; and to Naama Herman for her kind backing.
In accordance with Sections 27A and 50(a)(1) of the Copyright Act 2007, this publication contains materials whose copyright owners and/or authors are unknown or unlocatable. Any copyright owner or author of such materials who wishes to exercise his/her rights under the Act may contact the publication at SendMeYourArtistBook@gmail.com or via Phone +972-52-4215207.
Supporters
Partners
Pursuant to Sections 27A and 50(a)(1) of the Copyright Law, 2007 (“the Law”), this publication makes use of works whose copyright holders and/or creators are unknown or could not be located. Any copyright holder or creator of such a work who wishes to exercise their rights under the Law is invited to contact the publisher [email: SendMeYourArtistBook@gmail.com, or by phone: +972-52-421-5207].