The Five Spheres of Maty Grunberg

Dates: 03.02.2023-22.04.2023

Curator: Hila Cohen Schneiderman

About the Exhibition

Maty Grunberg was born in 1943, in the late stages of World War II in Skopje, Macedonia. In 1948 he immigrated to Israel with his family and settled in Bat Yam, then a small settlement surrounded by sand dunes and sand-rock cliffs overlooking the sea. In those days streetlights were dim and the stars shone brilliantly and clearly in the night sky. As a child, Grunberg followed the sun’s path from sunrise to sunset, fascinated by the movement of the big and small planets and constellations around Earth. This cosmic sensitivity ripples and seeps in all his works over five decades of creation. Over the years Grunberg created sculptures of sundials that were installed around the world and collaborated with architects and planners. His stance connects the artistic act to the world while recognizing the value of art as bearing witness, perhaps even access, to the mysteries of creation.

The exhibition The Five Spheres of Maty Grunberg displays a retrospective process, which examines Grunberg’s central bodies of work over 50 years. The term “sphere” comes from the Latin “sphaîra,” meaning globe or ball. The spheres are the different dimensions that orbit Earth – be they the atmosphere – the gas system that encircles Earth, or the firmament – the celestial sphere. The exhibition divides the museum’s top ring gallery into three distinct areas: the first focuses on the early days of Grunberg’s artistic creation, when he was a young student at the Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem, and includes a series of drawings and prints that capture Nature within the city and its surroundings. Beside them, a series of drawings and prints for Jewish scrolls – Esther, the Haggadah (the Bezalel Haggadah), and Ruth. In these works, Grunberg often collaborated with poets, including Nathan Zach and Yehuda Amichai. The second area is dedicated to the studio. It displays early and late works, drawings and sculptures, homages and dialogues, which provide an overflowing, intensive vision of the core and pulse of Grunberg’s creation. The third area unfolds the series entitled Erosions – three-dimensional works inspired by underwater pockets of air that seek to penetrate the paper and break free. The Erosions are displayed beside models of sundial sculptures installed in different places worldwide such as the square by the Hall of Science in New York and the promenade overlooking the walls of Jerusalem. 

Words are part and parcel of Grunberg’s work – as we would accept from an artist who drew, illustrated, and painted scrolls, books of poetry, and a Haggadah. At times it even seems that it is the story that inspires Grunberg and generates his multifaceted creation. In May 1969 the Bat Yam Museum opened an exhibition of works by four young artists: Michael Druks, Yacov Sharir, Michael Eizman, and Maty Grunberg. Now, 53 years later, on the eve of his 80th Birthday, Grunberg comes full circle within the sphere of the sun’s bright light that pours into the museum’s circular form.

Photography: Daniel Hanoch; Ran Arda