Exhibitions

Energy does not disappear or dissipate; it only changes form. In fact, since the Big Bang, the mass of the universe has been constant, only changing its shape and state of aggregation. Ella Littwitz revisits the ancient space around the Dead Sea and Mount Sodom, an area where the winds of Creation prevail. She explores the substances she finds there as being in the midst of change, a transformation in which the artistic act can take part.

The selection presented in the exhibition, a generous gift from Ms. Lynn Schusterman to the Museum, spans mainly works from the first half of the 20th century, the formative period of Israeli art. This cluster adds a significant artistic and historical layer to the Museum's existing collection (on view in the nearby permanent exhibition), which focuses primarily on Israeli art from the 1950s onwards. It attests to the transformations that occurred in local art over the years, highlighting issues in Israeli culture that are still relevant decades later. Although they were created in different parts of the country, the scorching Israeli sun shines over all of the featured works.

The nuances, the different textures, the emanation of light or its concealment, what is highlighted and what is relegated to the shadows: in Lihie Talmor's works, every detail has a meaning and every action has a purpose. Her work is centered on a search for something that was lost, but left traces on site, despite the vicissitudes of time. The freedom inherent in printmaking enables reversal—transforming the documented into imaginary, and introducing tension between reproduction and fiction, between memory and invention. Through print, Talmor sheds light on dark chapters in the history of a place, uncovering truths and secrets hidden beneath the surface, and discussing the innate tensions between history, man, and place.

Be it in Moscow, Berlin, Be'er Sheva, or Jaffa, Natalia Zourabova primarily paints the interior of her home. The gaze at the living environment is a means of adapting to it, and Zourabova discovers the place through painting; more accurately: by rendering the domestic interior, she discovers painting. Interior depictions tie the home to the studio, life to work. The painting is created in a familiar, loved place, but at the same time it pits the challenges of life against those of painting. Every moment spent at home is a time of studying the act of painting while mapping the space, perusing the shapes, colors, and textures that make up her habitat.

In her works, Hadar Saifan functions as a soldier: she spots aircraft, clears routes, patrols evacuated settlements, and shoots with her camera. The invasion of Israel in October 2023 reinforced the role of civilians in protecting their homes—people who felt they had been abandoned by the state and chose to fill the vacuum left by the official institutions themselves.

My room is my best place. We decide what to hang on the walls in it, we keep the most important things in it, and we close ourselves in it when we want to be only with ourselves.
We invite you to show us what your room looks like, or the room of your dreams: draw the room on a postcard, and be sure to describe the objects and details that make it your special place, different from all other rooms.

Merav Sudaey's exhibition space was transformed into a cave with painted walls, a ritual site for an ancient goddess. She draws inspiration from wall paintings in Hindu and Buddhist temples and monasteries, replacing all the figures with the image of one woman, her own. This painterly installation thus consists of a stratified series of self-portraits in which Sudaey examines her naked body as an object for painting while looking into herself as a subject. Applying diluted paint to the canvas, she heaps transparent layers one atop the other, which conceal or reveal spectral underlayers of female nudity. The two-dimensional canvas is rendered three-dimensional, as it were, as additional painterly worlds are waiting to be discovered under the top layer of paint.

Rachel Anyo creates a new visual image of a feminist Ethiopian woman. She recruited 13 differently-aged women of Ethiopian origin for the project, and together they explored their culture by working in the collage technique. Based on a database of images prepared by Anyo from her family albums, the participants created collages under the guidance of the artist, who deconstructed and reconstructed them into new collages all her own.

Equipped with white overalls, compassion and courage, Liron Hana Ohayon and Amit Gavish lead an interdisciplinary artistic act in the streets of Haifa. They gathered six women who recently moved to Haifa for a joint creative process, which included a confession and a statement of identity aimed at pushing the boundaries of involvement in the space. The six video works on view are elaborations of six acts of female healing, whose gist is coping together with personal passions and fears.