If you look closely at the “A(llen)bby Road” painting by Amit Shimoni, you’ll see that it’s more than just a parody of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. The obvious reference are the four historic Israeli figures depicted crossing Allenby Street in Tel Aviv.( From left to right: General Moshe Dayan, Prime Minister Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion and Theodore Hertzl.) In the background is the 466-foot Shalom Meir Tower, Israel’s first skyscraper..
With a closer look, the painting has a bit of symbolism: The dates on the license plate on one car reads, “25-06-87” (Shimoni’s birthday) and another license plate reads “14-05-48” (the day Israel was founded). Although the scene takes place in Tel Aviv, the cars are driving on the left side as they do in the United Kingdom, where the original Abbey Road is located. Shimoni told the Journal that the blue and white stripes on the curb “are a joke since you can never find free parking in Tel Aviv, so it’s like a utopia.”
“A(llen)bby Road” is a celebration of Israeli history and pride, elevating Dayan, Meir, Ben-Gurion and Hertzl to rock and roll Hall of Fame superstar status.
Shimoni originally created the painting digitally in 2014 for the Israeli Consulate as part of his Project HIPSTORY.
“I started this project and illustrate the Israeli leaders as nowaday hipsters,” Shimoni told the Journal. “It was 2014, hipsters were still a thing. And in HIPSTORY, there are a lot of details in the characters that are telling their stories in a way to present them to a young audience. And in A(llen)bby Road, it’s the same idea — put the historic leaders into one of the biggest symbols of pop culture.”
And it all started while he was a student at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. While procrastinating on a project, at the last minute, he made a graphic painting of Ben-Gurion as a modern-day hipster. The reception Shimoni received inspired him to keep on creating in that style.
It all started while he was a student at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. While procrastinating on a project, at the last minute, he made a graphic painting of Ben-Gurion as a modern-day hipster.
As his work garnered more notoriety, he set up an online shop for fans to turn his artwork into posters, tee-shirts, mugs, coasters and any other print-on-demand medium.
Over time, Shinoni created more artwork of historic figures as hipsters: a tattooed, pompadour-coiffed Albert Einstein wearing a sleeveless shirt with a peace sign on it. There’s Charles De Gaulle wearing a scarf with a stylish baseball cap worn intentionally askew to the right. John F. Kennedy is depicted sporting a pencil-thin goatee and wearing a yellow baseball-style t-shirt emblazoned with an image of what looks to be his purported mistress, Marilyn Monroe. And then there’s Mona Lisa, sporting a French bob haircut while wearing a graphic tank top with the background of her painting on it, and a tattoo of Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” on her left bicep.
In total, there’s more than 60 icons that he has digitally painted as hipsters, including some still alive and making history, including Volodymyr Zelensky, Elon Musk, Ringo Starr, Serena Williams and Angela Merkel.
And when you hover your cursor on the face of the icons on the HIPSTORY website, there’s a quote from the icon depicted. Shimoni’s respect for both history, taste for satire and talent for art have captured attention from around the world. His work has been featured at Urban Outfitters, on MTV and Comedy Central.
Since he created “A(llen)bby Road” nine years ago, around every Yom Ha’atzmaut Shimoni gets calls and emails from around the world from people who want to use his creation to celebrate another year of Israel.
Three years ago, “A(llen)bby Road” was shared by the official Twitter account for the State of Israel.
In 2022, Shimoni moved into the world of digital art. His work was sold quite well, and he donated much of the proceeds to charities providing clean water throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Most recently, Shimoni is focused on fine-tuning his talents to stay ahead of the rapid encroachment of artificial intelligence in the art world.
“I’m trying to create a new concept through AI and figure out where all of this profession of being a digital artist is going,” Shimoni said. “In this era, you just create and later try to figure out what it is.”
You can see more of Amit Shimoni’s art on his website, https://www.hipstoryart.com/ or on his Instagram page, https://www.instagram.com/shimoni_art/.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.