Exhibitions

Earth, water, wind, fire... and space are the elements that make up the entire universe. They are part of an ancient doctrine that used them as a means of solving problems, and from that time they have been an inseparable part of a variety of disciplines – philosophy, art, medicine, astrology and even politics. The connection between the elements emphasizes the basic concept that they nurture each other and that every element in our world is mutually dependent on another and does not exist separately. This exhibition seeks to illuminate all five elements in the light of art and to present the interrelationships between them through the works shown.

The exhibition "Time Tunnel – Japan and the Jews" marks 70 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and Israel. The exhibition focuses on the meeting point between Japan and the Jews through works of art by Japanese artists that relate to the Jewish narrative of rescue and extermination. The rescue story is based on the humane gesture of the Japanese Vice-Consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, who, in the summer of 1940, issued over two thousand visas to Japan. In this way, Sugihara saved more than six thousand Jews. Alongside the video installation by SHIMURAbros, rare photographs from 1941 of the Tampei Photography Group are displayed, including photographs of the refugees who came to Japan.

Dani Karavan |1930-2021| translated his artistic language without losing his roots and created a dialogue between his works and the Japanese place and experience. Three central works, in terms of their scope and level of conservation, are located along the length of Japan, on three different islands: On the northern island of Hokkaido, the "The Way to the Hidden Garden" is located in a sculpture forest on the outskirts of Sapporo; on the main island of Honshu, in Nara Prefecture, is the Murou Art Forest; and on the southern island of Kyushu, where the work "Bereshit" stands. This exhibition focuses on these three works.
Dani Karavan‘s environmental art includes the elements of experience, reaction, and the connection between it and the visitor. The visitor is not an external factor, a stranger, but must move within the work to experience it, and the work is not complete without the visitor. Already at first glance, the works invite the visitor to discover them from within. The three works are "site-specific", and any attempt to move them elsewhere will remove them from their unique context to the local history and geography. In the three works there is a discourse between the parts of the work, near or far, and they are a complete work only taken together as a whole.

Yasuhiro Suzuki | b. 1979 | is an artist designer. Suzuki does not meet the conventional definition of a designer because his creations are not limited only to aesthetic and useful products. His designs improve our quality of life, thanks to the encounter between them and the environment in which we live.
In a scientific approach interwoven with fine humor, Suzuki expresses his inner world and the way he looks at and experiences the world and the environment. Everyday experiences of joy and fear take center stage in his works. With great talent, Suzuki disassociates objects from their daily and familiar use, and gives them a new identity. Thus, cabbage leaves turn into a bowl, a gun shoots eyedrops and a tree’s leaves are replaced with eyes. Suzuki blurs the line between humans and nature – nature appears in the human body and Man is assimilated into nature.
Illustrations, seemingly simple, are an integral part of his creative process, and through them Suzuki reveals the mechanism of his thoughts. The explanations that accompany the exhibits were written by the artist. The exhibition makes accessible product, illustration, and text, the three dimensions in which the artist deals.

Comic drawings (in Japanese: manga or kyoga) have a long history in Japan, dating back to the religious sphere as early as the 8th century. The drawings were secularized and appeared in the Edo period, from the 17th through the mid-19th centuries, as humorous depictions without religious context.
The collection of works displayed here was created by three artists from the Utagawa school, which is considered one of the leading schools of ukiyo-e ("Pictures from the Floating World"). This genre depicts, in paintings and prints, the popular culture of the period. These works reflect the comic aspect of everyday scenes of human life and its ability to help deal with the difficulties of life. Some focus on facial expressions and others on situations that bring a smile to the face of the viewer. The three artists, Toyokuni, Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi, used to sign their works with a special signature meaning "caricature by the artist". The humor shown here crosses cultures and times and serves as a connecting thread between the daily lives of the people of the past in Japan and our lives in the present.

The exhibition "60 Contemporary Japanese Prints", celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, is the outcome of a joint initiative between the Yoseido Gallery, Tokyo, and the Tikotin Museum. On this festive occasion we are delighted to exhibit works by sixty of the finest contemporary Japanese print artists. Fifty-seven artists decided to donate their works to the Museum collection at the close of the exhibition and the Yoseido Gallery donated the remaining three works to the Museum.

On the celebrated occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, a wide variety of artworks from the Museum’s collection will be displayed. It is one of the most important and fascinating collections outside Japan. The collection comprises mostly of Japanese artworks from the Felix Tikotin Collection, to which donations of private collections were added, among them, the collections of Lewis B. Gutman and Daniel and Hilda Lebow of New York, the collection of Abraham Horodisch of Amsterdam, the collections of Shulamith and David Rubinfien and Sandra and Kenneth Bleifer of California, the collection of Michael Rukin of Boston and many others.

This is the fifth exhibition of its kind at the Tikotin Museum since re-opening to the public in 1995. Once again, we are proud to present a broad spectrum of artworks donated to or acquired by the Museum during the years that have elapsed since “New Acquisitions VI” in 2014. Traditional and modern prints, clothing accessories and other items are included in this exhibition.
The Museum’s collection has been augmented in various ways over the years. We acquire modern and traditional Japanese works of art, mainly in genres that enrich and sustain the collection, and artworks from new fields as well. Artists exhibiting either solo or in group exhibitions donate their own works to the Museum. Furthermore, some Japanese artists who have yet to be exhibited at the Museum also donate works. The collection has also grown thanks to collectors’ gifts and donations.

In early ink drawings it was customary to include gasen (writing). Gasen is original prose or verse, or a quotation from classical literature or poetry. In some instances, the text is added by a friend or admirer of the artist, and in others by the artist himself. Beneath the text the signature and seal of the poet are added. During the Edo era (1603-1868), the long tradition of poem-paintings
also began to appear as ukiyo-e (pictures from the floating world),
the woodblock print genre. Although ukiyo-e is considered a
popular art form, it is still closely linked to the classical Japanese
culture. This is evident in the integration of classic tanka poems
in the paintings or prints. An innovation of the Edo period was
illustrating poetry anthologies. The best known of these is "One
Hundred Poems of One Hundred Poets" (Hyakunin isshu).

What is origami? Most people would describe it as is an activity in which squares of colored paper are folded to create representations of animals, objects or geometric forms. However, this would not describe the folded paper installations of Tomoko Fuse (b. 1951). Her work asks us to consider the relationships between tradition and innovation. Is her work origami, or is it sculpture made from folded paper?