HOLON.- A bright yellow dress designed by Alber Elbaz, presented as if floating in mid-air, makes one of many dramatic moments at Design Museum Holon’s new exhibition Je t’aime, Ronit Elkabetz. The immersive, multi-sensory exhibition journeys through key, defining moments of the life of actress, director, muse and activist Ronit Elkabetz (1964-2016), utilising cues and influences borrowed from the fashion and film industries. The exhibition illustrates how Elkabetz created and reasserted the act of dressing as a transgressive performative act, charging the garment with powerful meanings and her own subjectivity. This exhibition comes together in a collaboration between Shlomi Elkabetz, film director, brother, and close collaborator of Ronit Elkabetz and fashion curator and historian Ya’ara Keydar. The display of the garments was created in collaboration with designer Victor Bellaish, who sculpted the clothes, breathing new life into them, as well as homage-like dresses and hand sewn mannequins, which were all created especially for the exhibition.

Je t’aime, Ronit Elkabetz presents the collection she left behind, comprising of 528 apparel items meticulously collected and stored in Tel Aviv and Paris over four decades and recently donated by the Yashar and Elkabetz families to Design Museum Holon. These include film costumes, couture and red-carpet dresses from both international designers including Christian Lacroix and Alber Elbaz, and local Israeli designers like Victor Bellaish, as well as accessories, jewellery and photographs. These are displayed alongside video art and sound installations in a unique juxtaposition of cinema, art and sartorial innovation.

The Lower Gallery space serves as an exposition to the exhibition. The three-meter-long bright yellow Alber Elbaz designed dress loaned to the museum by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris is presented as if suspended in the centre of the room. Hidden speakers project sound bites of Elkabetz speaking and singing, while the opening scene from a film which Elkabetz wrote, directed and acted in, “To Take a Wife” (2004), is shown on a vast screen. A second Alber Elbaz designed dress, which Elkabetz wore to the Cannes Film Festival, is showcased alongside video art created by Elkabetz’s brother, Shlomi Elkabetz, especially for the exhibition.

The Upper Gallery continues the immersive fashion and cinematic experience. Upon entering, an ascending, 16 metres catwalk-like "bridge" in black and gold offers viewers an alternative perspective of the overall space including site specific video art by Shlomi Elkabetz featuring a testimony of Ronit Elkabetz’s journey.

In addition, 28 surrealistic scenes provide different perspectives on Elkabetz's work, including bespoke videos, film clips, music and poetry readings. One of the scenes displays two Christian Lacroix couture dresses loaned to Elkabetz for Joseph Dadoune's cinematographic project “Zion” (2006), while another exhibits her Alber Elbaz’s wedding gown, famously torn during the 2014 Ophir Awards ceremony.

The Design Lab on the ground floor of the museum is temporarily transformed into a movie theatre, showing full length feature films Elkabetz starred in.

“This exhibition is a wonderful opportunity to reapply the meaning of museum as formulated in Ancient Greece – the hall of the muses or the arts. The nine Muses of Greek mythology, daughters of Zeus, were the goddesses of poetry and music, the givers of joy and the love of beauty. Many saw Ronit Elkabetz as a modern-day muse - writers, artists and designers drew inspiration from her image and her creative force. But Elkabetz was much more than mere muse. Her image, as reflected in this show, was a source of power. Her rare garment collection is an opportunity to regard design as an instrument of expression and identity formation, and to ask questions about ourselves and the way we define our own identity.” Maya Dvash, Acting Chief Curator of Design Museum Holon

“Fashion, the stated discipline the show is born of, is revealed to be a complex tapestry telling a rich story. Each object in this treasure trove has a biographical, symbolical and psychological significance. Fashion for Elkabetz was a way of transcending the physical appearance and creating an identity cherishing transgression, freedom, sexuality, identity and power through fabric. It was and still is a source of power for women everywhere. On screen, on stage, on the red carpet, anywhere and everywhere – Elkabetz shone a light on otherness, on difference, on the margins, allowing us to dare and dream of another reality – and make it a reality." Ya’ara Keydar, Curator of Je t’aime, Ronit Elkabetz

“Working from the political reality of her ancestry – both distant and immediate – focusing on dress allowed her to highlight and express the place of the other, of the exceptional. Doing this, she revalorised difference, transforming it from something that should be denied and suppressed into a reality that should be fostered and nourished, used to create new standards – “visiblising” the other, making it memorable. She was removed from the fashion world, but was simultaneously at its very heart, creating new subjects to look at, making people wonder what had brought about her choice to become ‘the queen of black’ – even when wearing white”. Shlomi Elkabetz, Artistic Director of Je t’aime, Ronit Elkabetz