The Petach Tikva Museum of Art Collection is similar in nature to those of other peripheral museums in Israel: collections which hold works by renowned artists alongside works by amateurs, and are essentially comprised of an assortment of sculptures, landscape views and abstract paintings, portraiture and documentation of local daily life. With the blessing of the Museum and the Israel Antiquities Authority, Levy was given permission to take some one hundred works from the collection storeroom, which were suspended on the walls of the Mazor Mausoleum archaeological site – a Roman tomb near Petach Tikva. The hanging mode was inspired by Panini’s paintings, but the featured scenes are fundamentally different, since the works represent a collection whose essence is the aforesaid mix of themes. The totality offers a subjective, stratified picture of life in Israel as experienced and depicted in the state’s early years; a jigsaw puzzle combining influences of the cultural melting pot, Arab-Jewish relations, confrontation of war and death, patriotism and the naïve desire to establish a social utopia here.
Hila Cohen Schneiderman, Petach Tikva Museum curator
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
