Life-changing music
Wednesday, 18th July, 2012It was back in the autumn of 1965 that Jerusalem’s Israel Museum was in the process of hiring teaching staff for its Ruth Wing for Youth Education that Izika Gaon first popped onto the scene.
Having successfully obtained employment at the Museum, within eight years he had become senior curator of the newly-established Department of Design and Architecture, a position held until his death in 1997 (aged just 59), during which Gaon arranged 120 design exhibitions, bringing Israelis the best names in international design.
Ezri Tarazi, a professor of industrial design at the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, said that his life was changed when viewing two 1978 exhibitions; both organised by Izika Gaon. The first was “From Idea to Product: Designing to the Sound of Bang & Olufsen”.
“They were the Apple of their time in their combination of design with futuristic technology” he said of the Danish electronics’ company. “It was like a spaceship landed on earth with all these products”
“Gaon set up his Bang and Olufsen products and asked everyone to bring personal records and tapes from home” Tarazi continued.
“Every week I’d arrive two to three hours before the courses I took at the Youth Wing started” he said. “I’d bring records from home or borrow some from friends. I finally heard music as it should be heard. It was amazing to listen to Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ in such quality.”
Read more of Izika Gaon’s work at the Israel Museum and of Jacob Jensen’s Bang & Olufsen product designs.
Gaon is also exhibited at New York’s MoMA Museum
