A new museum houses the works of the renowned kinetic artist born in 1928 in what is now Israel’s fourth-largest city. A museum dedicated to the colorful works of world-renowned kinetic artist Yaacov Agam opened its doors in 2018 in Rishon LeZion, the birthplace of the 89-year-old artist whose career has spanned 65 years. The 3,200-square-meter Yaacov Agam Museum of Art (YAMA), surrounded by a sculpture garden, was designed by architect David Nofar and built by the Menorah Group.

Opening Night at the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art in Rishon LeZion

Twenty multicolored pillars at the entrance, and nine more inside, are dedicated to Agam’s late wife, Clila. Exhibitions run the gamut from two-dimensional drawings to stained glass to interactive digital displays.

Agam Works in the Rishon LeZion Museum

Agam’s signature optical creations often have moving parts and invite the viewer to change how they look by interacting with them or by seeing the image from different angles – like his Fire and Water Fountain in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square or his “Agamogram” dominating the entrance hall of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

 Artist Yaacov Agam Designed the Fire & Water Fountain in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square

“Usually, when you see a painting in a museum, you stand in front, you look at it, and then you move on. With my work, you will never see everything. I want people who come to the museum to be able to see the paintings from every angle, so it’s also changing the approach to viewing art,” the artist told The Jerusalem Post.

Yaacov Agam in Rishon LeZion, Israel

“The principles which guided us in the creation of the museum’s content are based on the fact that Agam’s art is a choreography of changing relations between the observer and the work, and that each and every one of us experiences the total and parts of the work in a different way and tempo,” said YAMA Director Gilad Meltzer. “In the spirit of the artist, a visit to the museum will encourage a multiplicity of views and points of view, emphasizing the universal language of art and the unique and groundbreaking qualities of his work.”

Yaacov Agam Touring the Museum Dedicated to his Works in Rishon LeZion

Some of the elements housed in YAMA were previously installed in prominent museums and institutions around the world, including New York’s Guggenheim Museum and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Gradually, more of these works will come home to YAMA from museums and private collections in Israel and abroad.

“The colorful, dynamic and infinite works of Yaacov Agam grab children and adults alike, and just as the artist himself continues to create and regenerate, so the museum in his hometown will also aspire to become a center for disseminating his unique worldview, and will serve as a home for the changing exhibitions of his works,” said Rishon LeZion Mayor Dov Tzur.

Art in the Sky - Villa Regina Condominium Tower in Miami Florida 

 This Monument in Buenos Aires Includes at Least Seven Different Compositions

1- Destruction  2- Chanukiah  3- Magen David White  4- Rainbow  5- Menorah  6- Magen David on colors  7-Symbol AMIA

This monument was made in Tribute and Memorial to the Victims of the AMIA Bombing 1994 by the Israeli artist Yaacov Agam. The work visually tells a story that begins with the chaos caused by the explosion, and reaches the present with the Jewish community and strengthened with renewed hope. The monument consists of nine columns of 3.70 meters high and colorful profuse in which it is possible to discover different patterns as they change position.

The use of geometric shapes, not figurative, more than a style corresponds to the religious stance Agam, which preserves more narrowly the biblical injunction "You must not make image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. " Each of the nine vertical panels is worked on both sides, triangles and rectangles with vibrant colors and the assembly is placed on a large stepped shaped base Magen David. The most notable, of course, is its kinetic concept of perception of the work, in this case, as in many other Agam, not for parts of it to move it is the viewer who runs across the perceived boundary and can even penetrate. 

This nine panel sculpture in the Moon Walk at Woldenberg Park in New Orleans was created by world renowned Israeli kinetic artist Yaacob Agam. The memorial was dedicated in 2003 and serves a somber and hopeful tribute to the victims of the Holocaust of WWII.