LOS ANGELES, CA.- Game of Goose is a site-specific exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Maayan Elyakim, created for the VDL House in Los Angeles, a National Historic Landmark designed by Austrian American architect Richard Neutra. Curated by Dan Handel, the exhibition draws its name from the historic board game and explores movement, chance, and shifting mental landscapes, transforming the modernist residence into a reflective and dynamic experience.
Elyakim’s first solo exhibition in the U.S., following his 2022 solo show at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Game of Goose will be on view from April 26, 2025, through July 20th, 2025.
Delving into the lesser-known dimensions of the VDL House, the exhibition weaves a narrative shaped by its history as a home, social hub, and workspace. Inspired by the House’s interplay of carefully designed boundaries that allow for constant fluctuations of movement, social interactions, and mental states, each work in the exhibition resonates this duality in microcosm.
The exhibition’s spatial journey—from the ground floor entrance to the rooftop—is conceived as an intensifying gradient, transitioning from the cerebral to the experiential, much like navigating a three-dimensional game board.
Camel Table
Engaging thoughtfully with the house’s histories while offering fresh perspectives, Game of Goose leads visitors along a winding path of reflection and discovery. Spatial and mental boundaries continuously shift and unfold, transforming the house into an intricate game board of architectural experience, where each space reveals new rules of engagement and possibilities for interpretation.
“The VDL House blurs the boundaries between interior and exterior, transforming architecture into metaphor. The interior symbolizes the mind or inner self, while the exterior reflects the outside world. With nearly 20 doors and glass walls, the house becomes a borderless space, like a body with a porous skin where the outside world constantly bleeds inward. Its imperfect corners, intersecting lines, and reflective surfaces—glass, mirrors, and pools—embody the interplay of opposites: introspection and exposure, functional and playful, body and spirit. The house’s essence met my creative journey, inspiring the creation of new artworks that channel its dynamic, living energy and explore the very questions at the heart of my practice.” – Maayan Elyakim
The exhibition comprises ephemeral components, each purposefully situated throughout the VDL House:
● Tool Chest – a sculpture made of wood and cardboard, based on historical cabinets of curiosities, acts as a metaphorical body that encapsulates materials from the exhibition and elements from Elyakim’s artistic journey
● Bookmatch #2 – Framed marbled paper perpendicular to the mirror in Neutra’s study, creates the illusion of a symmetrical bookmatched pattern, evoking the fluidity of mental states.
● Both Hands – A screen print based on a drawing made simultaneously with both hands, articulating internal and external bodily processes.
● Book of Spirals – A sculpture positioned on the library beneath the window, featuring two ceramic “faces” with eyes made of shells, on opposite sides of an open “book” of spirals, tracing the relentless formations of the mind.
● Camel Table – A modified version of Neutra’s original reclining table in intermediate position, embedding into its surface a composition of complex patterns that refer to architectural pattern books.
● Rock – A sculptural form enfolded by unique fabric developed by Kvadrat, with its moiré effects creating shifting impressions of inner movements of light and color.
● Infinial – A spiraling aluminum staircase-shaped sculpture on the roof, culminating in a multi-colored anodized pattern facing west, echoing the sunset over the water reservoir that inspired much of Neutra’s work and time at the VDL.
The Artist
Maayan Elyakim is a multidisciplinary artist working across a broad spectrum of artistic media. His practice explores the potential of functional objects and the built environment to evoke abstract, emotional, and spiritual experiences. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Galeria Labirynt in Lublin, and Dvir Gallery. He has participated in prestigious residencies, including the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (Maine, USA) and Pilchuck Glass School (Washington, USA).
The Curator
Dan Handel is a writer and curator specializing in research-based projects that uncover underexplored ideas shaping contemporary built environments. He was the inaugural Young Curator at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, has curated exhibitions for the Venice Biennale and Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, and served as curator of architecture and design at the Israel Museum. His writing has appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, e-flux Architecture, Pin-Up, and other leading publications.
Neutra VDL House
The Neutra VDL Studio and Residences (1932-1965) of famed modernist architect Richard Neutra is owned by the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. It is stewarded by the College of Environmental Design at Cal Poly Pomona with the primary purpose of using the house as an educational resource for ENV students and faculty, preserving and maintaining the property, providing tours of the house by Cal Poly Pomona architecture students to visitors, and hosting arts and culture programs that will enhance the facility's mission as a community resource.
VDL Resident Director: Noam Saragosti
Dean, College of Environmental Design: Mary Anne Alabanza Akers
