and yet: looking at contemporary art 1985-2025

The exhibition, 'and yet: looking at contemporary art 1985-2025', invites visitors on a journey between darkness and light through a compelling selection of some 40 works spanning photography, painting, sculpture, video, and installation. Leading international artists including Gerhard Richter, Ugo Rondinone, and Cecily Brown are presented alongside emerging talents as Lenz Geerk and Louise Giovanelli, reflecting the ebb and flow of extreme experiences and the pursuit of balance. 

The exhibition spans four levels of the Eyal Ofer Pavilion and showcases several notable installations and paintings evoke human vulnerability and the endurance of the human spirit. Ugo Rondinone’s video installation (b. 1964 in Switzerland, lives and works in New York) Thanx 4 Nothing, features his late partner, poet and artist John Giorno, in a captivating performance of a poem written for his seventieth birthday, capturing the raw emotional power of gratitude tinged with disillusionment.

A photographic installation by German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann (1941-2023) titled 100 Years offers a penetrating reflection on aging and introspection. In an early work by American video pioneer Bill Viola (1951-2024), I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like, the artist delves into fundamental questions of human existence through a journey across states of consciousness that examine the human relationship with the natural world. 

Alongside this, the exhibition provides an interesting exploration of figurative painting from the past four decades: Peter Doig’s (b. 1959 in Edinburgh, lives and works in Trinidad and Tobago) work\practice? is deeply rooted in the tradition of painting while drawing inspiration from Romantic artists, with a touch of magical realism. Friedrich Kunath (b. 1974 in Chemnitz, Germany, lives and works in Los Angeles) also references German Romanticism and the sublime, incorporating elements from American pop culture. Cecily Brown (b. 1969 in London, lives and works in New York) in her painting All I Want Is a Room with a View, blends figuration and abstraction using expressive colors in her unique language. 

The twilight hour, the intermediary space in which the exhibition operates, is expressed in scenes that shift between dawn and dusk. Thus, the Sky Backdrop painted by American artist Alex Israel (b. 1982 in Los Angeles, where he lives and works) blurs the line between art and a Hollywood spectacle, raising questions about authenticity and truth, and the role of illusion. In these transitional moments lies a promise of renewal, but also a challenge to reality and the nature of hope. 

The exhibition is based on the museum's collection of international contemporary art and includes new acquisitions, works that have not been previously displayed, alongside a select number of loans from private collections and artists. 

Curator: Shahar Molcho 
Assistant Curator: Maya Lebel