Exhibition "You Shall Not Make an Image. Commandments, Daily Life and Change", 2025. March 5 - September 14

Jewish visual art, as a symbol created in the presence of the one God, did not always correspond to the concept of Western art and was formed under the strong influence of religion, especially the second commandment of God and its different and changing interpretation. Synagogue interiors, ritual and everyday objects, and books were often decorated avoiding figurative compositions, using animalistic, plant motifs and ornaments, which had significant references to various scriptures, prayers, and worldview. The fact that Jews were in the diaspora, next to the traditions of the peoples who lived next to them, also had an undoubted influence on art. At the end of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, modernization throughout Europe, the ideas spread by Haskala and other historical events inevitably began to change the perception of Jewish art. New shifts of thought enabled Jews to create visual art more freely and actively, imaging techniques expanded, and the plots of works became more diverse. Jewish sculpture, painting, and graphics flourished. Here, visions and forms of the modernizing world unfolded, which were in harmony and often intertwined with elements of Jewish folklore, and the search for one's own identity became apparent.

In 2025, on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the YIVO Institute in Vilnius, the starting point for the exhibition was the second commandment of God and its different interpretations in the tradition of Judaism and Christian civilization. In art, the relationships between nations are revealed – to be separated, to be exoticized, to curiously "look through the keyhole", to strive to resemble, and when they become similar, to relentlessly search for new ways of expressing one's own identity. Thus, this exhibition not only presents the legacy of traditional Jewish art or the interconnections between coexisting cultures, which are reflected in the artistic space, but also unites for a common goal of preserving, studying, disseminating and perpetuating knowledge about Litvak culture and history – one of the most important goals set by YIVO a century ago.