The word ornament means “decoration” or “embellishment” (from the Latin Ornamentum). Embellishment was originally a two- or three-dimensional addition intended to impart character, beauty, uniqueness, and identity to an object or structure. An ornament is often based on a repeating pattern, and its presence breathes life into the object: as it takes shape, like an act of creation, the ornament gives a visual, two- or three-dimensional identity to the object.
Throughout art history, the ornament has faced—and continues to face—an ambivalent and suspicious attitude (Loos, “Ornament and Crime”), yet it is also recognized as a powerful agent of culture, a bearer of knowledge, a cultural narrative, a piece of identity, an historical memory, and a representation of social status.
In his seminal article “Kishut and Koshet” [Decoration and Truth/Integrity], Gideon Ofrat outlines a tension between the unstable status of the concept of “decoration” in 20th-century Modernism and the interpretation of the Hebrew word koshet in Jewish literature: truth or integrity.
At the beginning of the 20th century, architects, painters, and sculptors—both internationally (e.g., Bauhaus) and locally (e.g., the New Horizons group)—viewed ornamentation as morally decadent and demanded the removal of ornaments from public and creative spaces. However, the human need for decoration persists, acquiring complex meanings (decoration and beauty versus truth and integrity). The fact that the ornament has not vanished from the world sharpens the understanding that decoration is a living language with its own syntax, structure, tradition, inventiveness, and even critical and subversive capacity.
The exhibition In the beginning God created, the Ornament examines the necessity, relevance, evolution, and meaning of decorative gestures today, stemming from an understanding of their power and vitality. Modernism’s attempt to eradicate the ornament failed: ornaments remain alive, kicking, and constantly updating.
What is the meaning of an object without decoration? Does decoration breathe life into an object, or is it actually the object or space that enables decoration to exist? The Industrial Revolution and digital algorithms have generated a new language of ornament: mass production turned the multiplication of objects into a field of ornaments, while the algorithm (3D modeling, parametric design) emerged with the understanding that its outputs are not merely an aesthetic phenomenon, but a political and social one—a tool expressing subjectivity, status, and identity in an era of mass production.
The exhibition In the beginning God created, the Ornament is multidisciplinary and intergenerational. It seeks to offer a new reading of the various meanings and interpretations of the ornament, examining its social and political status within our complex local reality.
Contemporary decoration is explored through a wide range of themes: conflicted local identity, gender, the body, industry, the language of ceramics, the object as ornament, creation, structures of meaning, dimensionality, rhythm, and life itself.
Artists: Hanan Abu-Hussein, Itamar Even, Sarah Auslander, Anisa Ashkar, Tsibi Geva, David Goss, Yonatan Hopp, Nevet Yitzhak, Elia Levi Yunger, Einat Leader, Talia Mukmel, Liav Mizrahi, Doron Naama Gelfer, Amnon Amos.
Curator: Shlomit Bauman
Opening: Thursday, 6.8.2026, 11:00
Gallery talk: Friday, 28.8.2026, 11:30
Closing: Saturday, 19.9.2026, 14:00
