Exhibitions

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 "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.

The exhibition "Handmade Japan" focuses on a variety of creative endeavours that characterize Japanese artisanry from the past to the present, as expressed through diverse objects. Some of the objects displayed in the exhibition are from the collection of the museum's founder, Felix Tikotin, and others are the handiwork of local craftsmen from Israel and Japan: Pavel Dibrov, an Israeli kumiko artist (wooden objects decorated with or composed of small pieces of wood); Mo Sela, an artist, carpenter, and musician from Israel; Nobuya Yamaguchi, an iron sculptor, musician, and musical instrument maker living in Israel; Dafna Kafman, a glass artist; Tim Oder, a folding paper artist; Yael Harnik, a textile artist; Saori Kunihiro, a calligraphy and scroll artist from Kyoto; Emi Nakamura, a mizuhiki artist from Tokyo; Simon Fujiwara, a visual artist from Germany; Ichika Yoshida, a calligraphy artist from Tokyo; tops by the master Masaaki Hiroi and selected textile pieces from Adina Klein's Collection among others. The museum walls display photographs taken by French photographer Pierre-Élie de Pibrac during his eight-month journey in Japan, through which he immortalizes Japanese aesthetics in everyday life.