Curator Shir Meller Yamaguchi, who lives in the Kibbutz Einhod Artists’ Village, is passing on his knowledge of Japanese life to his war-weary fellow Israelis in a new exhibition at the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art in Haifa, titled “From Road to Road – The Spirit of the Road.” This exhibit invites visitors to take a leisurely look at the world of Asian mindfulness.
“After two years of war and the impact of the coronavirus, we feel lost right now. There’s a sense of ‘where do we go from here?'” Mellor Yamaguchi said. “The ‘Torah’ of Dao brings us back into ourselves and allows us to discover what we can do to feel complete with ourselves.”
Dou, meaning “way,” has its origins in the Chinese concept of Tao, which has been integrated into Zen Buddhism for centuries. The exhibition features a wide range of Japanese art with the suffix “do”, each of which utilizes meditation within movement.
Meller Yamaguchi’s exhibit takes visitors through the Japanese tea ceremony, the tea ceremony. Calligraphy and intricate calligraphy works. The quiet strength of martial arts is demonstrated by martial arts. The entire collection of contemporary artworks aims to introduce visitors to finding meaning in the path itself. Especially in an age of constant rushing, worrying, and multitasking.
This exhibition opened in January and also had a sister exhibition. Wilfrid Israel Kibbutz Hazorea Asian Art MuseumBoth were curated by Mellor Yamaguchi and draw on the holdings of Felix Ticotin and Wilfrid Israel, two long-time collectors who spent years appreciating and collecting Asian art. The exhibition will end on May 31st.
“From Path to Path” begins with a tea room, whose arched doorway is lowered in accordance with Japanese tradition, encouraging visitors to leave their egos outside the door, enter the space, and concentrate on the ritual.
“We hold a tea party every Saturday, and this space is completely silent,” Meller Yamaguchi said, pointing to the museum’s small lobby. “There are hundreds of people and there is complete silence, which I think is an experience that people need after the rockets and the sirens and the fear. That’s the idea of this exhibit, to give you that peace of mind that you’re okay for now, you don’t know what tomorrow is going to be, but you’re okay for today.”
For the rest of the week, videos will guide visitors through the steps of the tea ceremony, along with display cases of tea utensils and ceramic bowls from the museum’s collection.
Meller Yamaguchi pointed out that Japanese military generals used matcha before battle because green matcha has a calming and energizing effect and is drunk during tea ceremonies.
(For those looking for a more personal experience, the excellent Tarek Tikotin Cafe on the second floor serves a particularly frothy matcha latte.)
The remaining exhibits, including works and scrolls by traditional calligraphers, as well as works by contemporary Japanese artist Tomoko Kawao, encourage visitors to take a closer look at calligraphy and consider a Japanese art form that allows for deeper meditation and concentration. Her body postures are part performance art, part dance, part calligraphy in a 10-meter (32-foot) oversized piece of brushwork.
Meller Yamaguchi also considers martial arts, focusing on those that emphasize the individual rather than victory or competition, such as judo and karate, and selecting three disciplines: archery, aikido, and iaido.
Visitors to the courtyard can see Nobuya Yamaguchi’s work “Walking Between the Drops.” This piece is a ring of sparkling water droplets made of forged stainless steel, evoking an endless circle with no beginning or end.
A strong part of the exhibition is artist Yasuaki Onishi’s site-specific installation “Kou” or “Path of the Void.” Yasuaki Onishi hung hundreds of sheets of white paper in a loop from the ceiling of one of the museum’s galleries.
Yasuaki invites visitors to walk along a winding path among the pieces of paper, some of which are held down by ancient basalt, creating a quiet, meditative space.
The stairway concept continues in the contemporary art gallery, which features works by Israeli and Japanese artists, including works by Alex Kremer, Erika Masuya, Avi Eisenstein, and Maya Cohen-Levy, using calligraphy, oil painting, photography, and video.
Mellor-Yamaguchi said that unlike other artists in European and American countries who have participated in the ongoing cultural boycott against Israel since the start of the Gaza War with the bloody Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023, the high-profile Japanese artists were willing to participate.
“It’s not very political there,” she said. “Unlike Europe and the United States, there aren’t many Muslims in Japan, so they weren’t involved. Nobody turned them down.”
The Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art is open Tuesday through Sunday, and the Wilfrid Israel Museum of Asian Art is open Monday through Saturday. The public can purchase a common admission ticket to both exhibits for NIS 55 ($18). This ticket can be used for 4 months while the two exhibits are on display at the same time.