SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2024

GANBATTE

A Solo Exhibition by Ram Katzir in The Mirror Gallery, Tokyo

The exhibition delves into themes of growth and impermanence through three mediums: stone, metal, and film. This intimate presentation encourages viewers to contemplate life’s transient nature and our evolving roles within its cycles.

Inspired by Buddhist teachings on the lasting impact of our actions, Katzir works with materials that symbolize writing on water, sand, and stone—representing the fleeting, semi-permanent, and enduring nature of human deeds.

Housed in the innovative space originally designed as the “Matsukawa Box” by architect Mayumi Miyawaki, The Mirror Gallery blends cutting-edge design with profound artistic expression. Since its founding in 2023 by Toshio Shimizu, the gallery has quickly gained recognition, opening with a solo exhibition by Anish Kapoor.

This exhibition was made possible with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund and the Dutch Embassy in Tokyo.

Photo by Toshihide Kajihara

Link

SEPTEMBER 2024

YUMEMITAI

Public Sculpture for a New Museum, Osaka, Japan

Grand Green Osaka is a landmark development project in Umekita Park, facing Osaka Station. It harmoniously integrates lush green spaces with urban environments.

VS. (Visionary Station), designed by acclaimed architect Tadao Ando, promises visitors a distinctive encounter with new art and technology. As a native of Osaka, Mr. Ando views the Umekita Project as a legacy of pride for upcoming generations.

Ram Katzir has crafted a site-specific sculpture for this iconic venue, drawing inspiration from studies of Osaka residents.

Official opening on September 8, 2024

Artistic Director: Toshio Shimizu Art Office

Photo by Kazuo Fukunaga

Commissioned by Grand Green Osaka Umekita Park Board led by Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd

may 2024

Tracing Future Taiwan

Floor design for a new plaza in Xinyi District, Taipei

The immersive installation Tracing Future has been completed in Taipei. This artwork invites visitors to contemplate their life and actions ‘here and now,’ inspiring new directions and actions. The hand, depicted as a topographical map, outlines a personal path in life.

Visitors to the Guanci Social Housing complex step into a massive line drawing of a hand tracing the lifeline of another. From above, it appears the building has grown hands, rewriting its narrative. This project aims to promote social and urban reform in Taipei’s financial and political hub.

Official opening on May 2024

Curated by Huichen Wu from Artfield, Taipei

Commissioned by the Taipei City Government Department of Urban Development

MARCH 2024

Onirico

Public sculpture, West Bund Site, Shanghai, China

When two colors meet, a new color emerges. Similarly, when two or more people meet, a new space is created that is larger than the sum of its parts. In 2023, Ram Katzir’s first permanent public artwork in China Onirico will unveil at Xuhui Riverside in Shanghai.

Onirico welcomes visitors to the historic Nanpu Railway Station site, built initially for cargo transport. It is a symbolic place reminding people of the city’s industrialization progress.

Situated between an art museum and a park, it will be a magical meeting point in Xuhui District. Next to the artwork is the newly built Start Museum, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. The proximity of the Art and Design Fair and Katzir’s monumental sculpture will become a unique highlight of the West Bund Culture Corridor.

Official unveiling on March 2024

Curated by Purple Roof Public Art

Commissioned by Hong Kong Land

Realized with financial support from the Mondriaan Fund

FEBRUARY 2024

Tracing Future Taiwan

Floor design for a new plaza in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan

After several delays, work has finally begun on Ram Katzir’s Tracing Future in Taipei’s Xinyi District.

This immersive Terrazzo and Corten steel artwork is designed to accommodate the site’s unique needs, frequented by elderly people and mothers with strollers.

A Corten steel line drawing winds through a Terrazzo floor, creating a central meeting point that feels like it has always been part of the landscape.

By connecting the building and plaza playfully and spatially, the artwork encourages interaction between visitors and residents, seemingly making the social housing complex ‘grow hands’ and rewrite itself.

Official opening in spring 2024

Commissioned by The Taipei City Government Department of Urban Development

Curated by Huichen Wu, Artfield, Taipei

NOVEMBER 2023

Grow Shanghai

Public sculpture, New Bund 31, Pudong, China

Ram Katzir’s 4-meter bronze sculpture ‘Grow” will be placed before Shanghai’s Performance Art Center.

Artworks by Jonathan Borofsky and Akio Hamatani can be found in the New Bund 31 complex.

Story of Grow: “I was walking through a park, and it was raining. Suddenly, the sun emerged from behind the clouds, and people stopped and turned their faces toward the sun the way flowers do. They didn’t see one another, but they were all connected. Grow is a sculpture about hope and the potential for growth within each of us.” Ram Katzir

Official unveiling by the Consul-General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on October 28th, 2023

Clients: Shun Tak Holdings and LiuJia Zui Group

Curated by Art Front Gallery, Tokyo

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2023

Reshaping Space

Jing'an International Sculpture Project, Shanghai, China

Group exhibition with Elmgreen & Dragset, Leandro Erlich, Tom Friedman, Anthony Gormley, Ram Katzir, Jim Lambie, Erwin Wurm, and others.

Ram Katzir’s installation Here depicts a surreal encounter between a cloud dog and a cloud man. The dog is inspired by the Chinese guardian lions that stood in front of palaces and temples. The clouds on each head symbolize changing concepts and beliefs. Visitors can project into these clouds their thoughts. Here reminds us to be here now.

The exhibition runs from 20 September until 31 December 2023

Opening, 19 September 2023

Curated by Purple Roof Public Art

June 2023

Tracing Future Taiwan

Permanent installation in Xinyi District, Taipei

Our future is in our hands. With Tracing Future, this idea becomes tangible, an immersive floor design connecting the Guanci Social Housing complex to a new metro station in Taipei’s Xinyi District.

Visitors will step into a vast line drawing of a hand tracing the lifeline of another, symbolizing the personal paths we carve in life.

The artwork aims to foster social and urban reform in Taipei’s financial and political center. From above, it will appear like the building has grown hands, continually rewriting its story.

Commissioned by The Taipei City Government Department of Urban Development

Production will start in September 2023. Official opening in November 2023.

Curated by Huichen Wu, Artfield, Taipei

July - November 2022

Suitcase in a Bottle

Setouchi Triennale 2022, Takamatsu Yashima, Japan

The fifth Setouchi Triennial will run during April 14 – November 6, 2022 in Naoshima and surrounding islands.

Suitcase in a Bottle is a project about spiritual homelessness. The longing for home is encased in the suitcase like a genie in a bottle. This sculpture raises questions about the flow of life and where it takes us, as our baggage of expectations drifts towards an unknown destination. After the Triennale, Katzir’s artwork will remain in the permanent collection of Shikoku Mura Museum, designed by Tadao Ando.

Katzir’s presentation in Japan has been realized with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund.

Curated by Fram Kitagawa

JUNE 2022

Shadows

Memorial to the major raid, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

During the Second World War, the Olympiaplein was one of the places where Amsterdam’s Jews were forced to gather on the orders of the occupying forces.

More than 100,000 Jews from the Netherlands were murdered during the Holocaust.

This photograph was taken during the major raid in Olympiaplein on June 20, 1943, by collaborator and Dutch Nazi party member Herman Heukels. The names of the people in the photo are not known.

The memorial consists of shadows from asphalt in the spot where the photographed victims walked to remind us of this event in the future.

Artist Ram Katzir designed it with Laura Borgstein, Zara Hoeffelman, and Anne Kleijn, students from Het Amsterdam Lyceum.

Spatial Design by Architectural Prescription

Commissioned by the city of Amsterdam

Photo courtesy of NIOD

Official unveiling on 20 June 2022

Watch the making of the video

Read the New York Times article

April 2022

Longingtude

Design Museum Holon, Israel

Katzir’s video installation from 2007 ‘Longingtude’ is a visual meditation on the changing nature of things. Viewed through a French window, the winter horizon of Tel Aviv’s coast subtly transcends mood and color.

‘Longingtude’ will be part of the group exhibition ‘Overdose’ showing highlights from Galila’s P.O.C, a private space in Brussels dedicated to the contemporary art collection of Galila Barzilaï Hollander.

Curated by Avihai Mizrahi and Neil Nenner

Exhibition runs from 11 April – 13 August 2022

Opening, 10 April 2022

OCTOBER 2021

Portal 2.0

Art Route completion, Zwolle, the Netherlands

Is time traveling possible? It is, if Zwolle station is in your cards.

After seven year in the making studio Ram Katzir and artist duo Hertog Nadler have completed the art project Portal which first unveiled in 2016.

Portal 2.0 consists of a permanent installation in Zwolle’s new station square and continues with a series of artworks leading to the city centre.

Commissioned by the municipality of Zwolle.

Official opening on September 30th, 2021.

For more info visit the Portal website.

FEBRUARY 2021

Eggsistence Brussels

Public sculpture for Avenue Van Volxem

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished – Lao Tzu

Squeezed between a soft boiled existence and an endless need to produce, Ram Katzir’s latest creation is placed at the entrance of a new gallery complex in Forest next to Wiels Contemporary Art.

The sculpture Eggsistence is part of the permanent collection of Galila’s P.O.C, an art collection in the spirit of a contemporary cabinet of curiosities. Reservations can be made after the lockdown ends via the following link

OCTOBER 2020

Allsorts

Permanent installation, Brussels, Belgium

On October 24th, a surprising new art space will open, a stone’s throw from WIELS, Brussels’ contemporary art center.

The public will have the chance to discover Galila’s P.O.C, a collection organized around a multitude of heterogeneous themes and presented in the form of a cabinet of curiosities.

Galila, the passionate lady of the house, will guide the visitors through her phantasmagoric world.

P.O.C is also engaging with the local community by working on an educational project in two neighboring buildings.

Ram Katzir has created three interactive installations for this new collection. Come and explore them and many other delicacies

Visits by reservation only via the collections website.

SEPTEMBER 2020

Stay Nagoya

Public sculpture for a new park in Japan

An interactive artwork by Ram Katzir will be placed in Hisaya Odori Park in the heart of Nagoya.

Stay is a sculpture about the nature of support. On one side the large figure hugs the small, and on the other their roles change. From either side we see only backs, facing the horizon together.

Visitors are welcome to sit with Stay and participate in this artwork. We can all use a hug.

Official opening on September 14th, 2020

Artistic director: Toshio Shimizu Art Office

Commissioned by Mitsui Fudosan, Tokyo

JULY 2020

Manna

Freedom Monument, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

This year the Netherlands celebrates 75 years of liberation from Nazi repression. To mark this occasion a freedom monument will be placed in a new park. Ram Katzir’s proposal has been chosen as the winning design.

During the Hongerwinter (Dutch famine) of 1944-45, millions of Dutch people were starving and food was scarce. Shortly before the liberation , some relief came with “Swedish white bread”, which was baked locally from flour shipped in from Sweden.

Bread plays a prominent role in many cultures. It’s more than food, it brings people together. The artwork ‘Manna’ is designed as a meeting place. The message of compassion and nourishment is still relevant in our world today.

Official opening on July 6th, 2020

Commissioned by the Municipality of Amsterdam.

JUNE 2020

Making Eden

A short film about a man and a dog

In November 2018 the artwork Eden was unveiled in the Dutch city of Zeist. This film follows Ram Katzir’s creative process in the studio and during production. Eden looks deceptively simple. On the one hand it is welcoming and heartwarming and on the other it touches themes such as loneliness and our need to connect.

Directed by Fons Pennings

Music by Marijn Korff de Gidts

Commisioned by the Municiplaity of Zwolle

View film

March - December 2020

Time Travellers

Outdoor portrait exhibition at Zwolle Station, the Netherlands

Time Travelers is a life-size portrait exhibition of a selection from 500 locals who participated in ‘Portal Zwolle’ film shoot in 2015.

The exhibitions will alternate every few months until construction of the new station is complete in 2022.

Opening of the 1st series of portraits on March the 4^th, 2020 at 13:00.

Collaboration with Hertog Nadler.

Graphic design by Rutger Fuchs. Photography by Jaap Stahlie.

Commissioned by the Municipality of Zwolle.

SEPTEMBER 2019

Little Big Sculptures

Artist Talk in Shibaura House, Tokyo, Japan

On the occasion of Setouchi Triennale Autumn opening, Ram Katzir will be discussing his public art projects with Toshio Shimizu, curator and professor of art history.

Shibaura House, Tokyo

Thursday, September 26th at 19:30

3-15-4 Shibaura Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan, 108-0023

Organized by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in collaboration with the Embassy of Israel and the Mondriaan Fund

May - JULY 2019

Leela

Set design for Vertigo Dance Company, Tel Aviv, Israel

Leela means in Sanskrit a divine play in which humans are mere pawns.

Inspired by the fall from heaven, the creation Leela takes place in the space between illusive reality and God’s cosmic play.

World premiere on May 13th, 2019, Suzanne Dellal Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel

International tour starts on July 11th, 2019, Pompeii Amphitheater, Napoli Teatro Festival, Italy

Choreographer: Noa Wertheim

Music: Ran Bagno

Set design: Ram Katzir

Costume design: Sasson Kedem

Lighting design: Dani Fishof – Magenta