Want of Matter
Want of Matter is an Israeli art style from the 1960s to the 1980s. It stands out for using cheap, everyday materials, for a rough, improvised look, and for criticizing social reality in Israel. Key artists include Raffi Lavie, Yair Garbuz, Michal Na’aman, Tamar Getter, and Nahum Tevet.
The name came from a Tel Aviv Museum exhibition in March 1986 called The Want of Matter: A Quality in Israeli Art, curated by Sara Breitberg-Semel. The show aimed to define a distinct Israeli art voice by looking at how artists related to European and international trends. Breitberg-Semel linked Want of Matter to Pop Art, Arte Povera, and Conceptual Art, and she also introduced the idea of “anesthetic,” drawn from Jewish textual culture, which centers on language and text in art.
Breitberg-Semel traced Want of Matter back further to earlier Israeli art, including the New Horizons group with its lyrical abstract painting. Artists like Aviva Uri and Arie Aroch then influenced those in Want of Matter, who used material choices and a plain, ascetic surface to question what art should be. The first generation in this group, active in the 1960s, worked with new materials and collaborative experiments, such as the 10+ group, which brought in photographs and even early video art to two-dimensional works. The style favored painting over sculpture and relied on low-cost materials such as plywood, cardboard, collages, photographs, and industrial paints, often with writing or scribbles included. This was meant to create a humble surface that could critique Israeli society.
Raffi Lavie became the public face of the movement. His work and persona—sloppy clothing, a shrugging attitude, and simple, collage-based images on whitewashed plywood boards—became the defining look of Want of Matter. Lavie argued that art should speak in the language of art itself, not through grand interpretations. His students, including Garbuz, Na’aman, Yehudit Levin, and Tevet, carried his ideas into their own work. Lavie also played a major role in education at the Hamidrasha Art Teachers College, where he urged students to think about art and modern aesthetics rather than traditional drawing lessons. He opposed formal grading, favoring public discussion of students’ work as a form of criticism.
The group helped establish Tel Aviv as a center of contemporary Israeli art, with exhibitions and galleries in the city. But debates followed. Some critics argued that the movement was promoted by museum leaders and the art establishment, while others saw it as one of several responses to Israeli society. The “Jerusalem” artists, some of whom worked in performance and public spaces, represented a different approach to art’s place in life, while Lavie and his circle focused more on the formal, painting-centered side of art.
In the 1980s and beyond, critics reassessed Want of Matter. Some argued that the movement was less a single, unified center than a moment in a larger evolution of Israeli art. In 1991 Breitberg-Semel updated her introduction to the original essay, acknowledging a shift in culture after 1967 and the complex social changes that followed. Other writers, like Sarah Chinski in 1993, criticized the idea of a purely local or universal art discourse, noting how political realities in Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shaped art in ways the movement did not fully address.
Today, Want of Matter is seen as an important, provocative chapter in Israeli art. It highlighted how artists used simple materials and a non-heroic presentation to question authority, society, and national myths, while also showing how art can be a conversation about form, language, and identity.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:13 (CET).