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עברית
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Cats 1-20
Cats 21-40
Cats 41-60
Cats 61-80
Cats 81-100
Cats 101-120
Cats 121-140
Cats 141-160
Cats 161-180
Cats 181-200
Cats 201-220
Cats 221-248

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beautiful full color 60 page catalogue with all 248 cats

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Welcome to Famous Cats of Jerusalem!

In Jerusalem, cats are everywhere!

The Famous Cats of Jerusalem is a photographic art piece by the collaborative art team Gordon & Gordon. From November 2005 through January 2006, we photographed 248 cats, and then distributed the photographs around the city for people to find.

We photographed the cats as we saw them. Some preened for the camera and followed us almost begging to be photographed again, while others were skittish and ran from the camera as soon as they heard the shutter click. The piece is the collection of one photo of each of the 248 cats, in order of appearance. They are numbered chronologically - we made no aesthetic decisions regarding the cats or their setting. They are all in there - beautiful, ugly, sweet, sickly, funny, garbage covered and urban pastoral.

The photos are unaltered, other than to label them with the name of the piece and the image number. They were distributed randomly around the city of Jerusalem. If you found one of the cat photos, please click on the link to the left 'did you find one of the cats' and fill out the questionnaire.

Since beginning the piece, we've gotten a lot of feedback on the cats of Jerusalem. The cats are everywhere and everyone has an opinion on them. Some people appreciate the cats because they fend off rats, scorpions and snakes. Others think that the cats themselves are pestilential. Some people have told us that many of the cats in the city are 'gilgulim' (reincarnations) of Rabbis and other great people. We had intended to have a nice round number of 250 cats and thought that we had it. When we totalled the number of cats and the number came to 248 - it seemed appropriate as 248 is a significant number in Judaism.

The Famous Cats of Jerusalem was produced by the collaborative art group Gordon & Gordon. Gordon & Gordon is Joseph and Rachel Connelly, a married artist team. Rachel is a photographer and fiber artist without formal art training. Joseph is a classically trained conceptual artist. After receiving his MFA, Joseph taught Artists’ Video, Performance Art and Installations and Environments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the last 8 years, we have collaborated on a wide variety of pieces – durational, site specific and audience participatory. We recently moved from the United States to Israel, which has given us a lot of new ideas for pieces.

To see more work by Joseph Connelly, Rachel Gordon, or Gordon & Gordon just click on the names and follow the links.

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