Golden Hands - Notes from a Conversation Between Vardit Gross, Hilla Toony Navok & David Adika

Aug 27, 2026

Golden Hands presents the outcome of a year of mutual collaboration between David Adika and Hilla Toony Navok at Artport Tel Aviv. The conversation traces shared artistic interests in architecture, design, aesthetics, and kitsch, while explaining how their work transforms everyday, peripheral materials into a rich visual and spiritual experience. It highlights inspirations drawn from Tokyo’s ordered chaos, an Ikebana battle that reduces the exhibition to outlines and color choice, and a “space within a space” strategy using intermediate walls and screening to postpone exposure, invite peeking, and create uncertainty and surprise.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages2

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

Notes from a Conversation Between Vardit Gross, Hilla Toony Navok & David Adika

Collaboration and shared interests

Ikebana battle and color choice

Intermediate spaces, temporary walls, and screening

Gift, disturbance, and artistic exchange

ה ילה טוני נבוק HillaToony Navok هيلا توني نابوك First Collaboration ידי זהב أيدٍ من ذَ هب דוד ע דיק א David Adika داوود عديقا פ ר ו י ק ט מ ש ו ת ף ר א ש ו ן المشروع المشتر ك الأول 10-31.12.16 Friday and Saturday שישי ושבת 16:00 — 10:00 ראשון עד רביעי בתיאום מראש Sunday to Wednesday by appointment שעות פעילות Opening HOurs Thursday חמישי 20:00 — 12:00 03-5182599 [www.artportlv.org](www.artportlv.org) דרך בן צבי 55, תל–אביב 55 Ben Zvi Road, Tel Aviv ע י צו ב: ס ט ו די ו ג 2 Notes from a Conversation Between Vardit Gross, Hilla Toony Navok & David Adika The exhibition Golden Hands is the outcome of a year of mutual work between David Adika and Hilla Toony Navok at Artport Tel Aviv, resulting in ideas on aesthetics, space, design and kitsch that developed into collaboration, where each side supports the other, disrupts his work and surprises him. david: In a quick glance, our works don’t seem that related. During our residency at Artport we discovered that we are interested in similar things – we both wander a lot before exhibitions, we are both extremely passionate about architecture, design, art and what lies between them. If I usually explore the areas of kitsch, display windows, Israeli home interiors and what can be found on their shelves, I believe that Toony is more attracted to home decor shops, furniture and the aesthetics of the Israeli home, mainly that of the periphery. Our artistic action is mostly of transformation – working with what is perceived as banal, peripheral and its decoration with feathers. toony: From my point of view, dealing with the everyday has to do with the abstract. I try to find traces and leftovers of abstract “highclass” aesthetics in my everyday surroundings. david: When we realized we wanted todo something together, we searched fora place that interests us both and that will stimulate us; we thought of Japan in general and Tokyo in particular. Tokyo interested us as a city that, on one hand is filled with great chaos, though inside, things go about in perfect order and cleanliness. Precise and minimalistic aesthetics aside visual noise and redundancy. This physical journey you make in Japan – from the temple of electronics to the temple of Zen – is the type of journey we both try to achieve in our work, using the “cheap” as raw material and as a drive towards a rich aesthetic and spiritual experience. vardit: You chose the two colors that dominate the exhibition, blue and red, inspired by an Ikebana battle you witnessed as viewers: a battle in which two masters offlower arrangement compete in front of an audience. The audience votes for the arrangements according to the masters’ assigned colors, red or blue. In your exhibition at Artport you have, in fact, left only the outlines – the colors and the act of choice – leaving out the flowers themselves. david: I believe that for the both of us, watching the battle was a very powerful moment – witnessing the artistic experience of many years (of the two Ikebana masters) condensed into such a short amount of time, five minutes. It reminded us a little of our own artistic practices – photography, sculpture and drawing. They too possess that crucial moment in which you just put everything down and “that’s it”. toony: For me, for example, drawing is never a sketch – it is a moment in time that has to be precise, an action I begin, I don’t erase and I don’t go back. david: In the Ikebana battle, a choice is made by both, the contestants and the viewers. As such, in the exhibition, the space requires you to choose – left or right. toony: We thought of the gallery as a space within a space, and of the possibility of an “intermediate space”, a transition space, that mediates between the outdoors and the indoors, that mixes entering and exiting. david: The temporary walls (of the intermediate spaces) function asa background, as an object and as dividers. We wanted to preserve the Japanes

FAQs

What is Golden Hands, according to the conversation notes?

Golden Hands is the result of a year of mutual work between David Adika and Hilla Toony Navok at Artport Tel Aviv, developing ideas about aesthetics, space, design, and kitsch into a collaboration.

How does the Ikebana battle influence the exhibition approach?

The colors blue and red are chosen based on an Ikebana battle, but the exhibition leaves only the outlines and the act of choice, omitting the flowers themselves.

What is meant by the “space within a space” concept in the exhibition?

The gallery is treated as an intermediate transition zone that mediates between outdoors and indoors, supported by temporary walls that act as equal background and object while concealing other works.

Aug 27, 2026

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