I created Birthday in 2015 for the exhibition celebrating the Israel Museum’s 50th anniversary.
The installation was inspired by our own family ritual — the familiar circle around the table: a spiral candy tablecloth I printed when my children were small, chocolate cake with frosting and sprinkles, raspberry juice, heart-shaped confetti, and gifts for everyone.
From this intimate scene I created a collective one — a birthday for all.
The private celebration became a shared space of memory and imagination. Visitors could enter, touch, listen to birthday songs through a pink party hat, and breathe in the scent of chocolate cake that filled the gallery — as if reality and fantasy had merged into one sensory experience.
Each object was chosen as part of a visual and cultural study of the Israeli birthday: the polka-dot cup and plastic straw from the local mall, the paper plate and golden cupcake holder, the Elite toffee wrappers, the candle, the sprinkles, the heart confetti — each an icon of celebration, nostalgia, and collective identity.
The installation also paid tribute to Pop Art — to the language that transformed everyday objects into art.
The dotted cup recalled Lichtenstein, the raspberry drink nodded to Warhol’s Coca-Cola, and the metallic hat was a wink to Jeff Koons.
Between the personal and the universal, the real and the imagined, Birthday explored the boundary between celebration and ritual, childhood and culture — between what is ours and what we share.
Birthday
Mix Media
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2015
Curator: Orna Granot
Birthday installation was exhibited throughout the museum’s jubilee year and later donated to the Children’s Department at Sheba Medical Center (Tel Hashomer).
Two works were featured on the covers of the museum’s summer catalogues: Jeff Koons’ Sacred Heart and my Birthday.
Photos: Arik Sultan
Jeff Koons's Photo: Philipp Scholz Rittermann
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