Tikkun Olam or ‘repairing the world’ (also ‘healing the world’) is a Hebrew term embracing the idea of an ideal world and social justice. The term comes from the early rabbinic tradition and was first recorded in Mishnah. It emphasizes the religious way of life, striving for peace, prosperity, health, and justice for all.
Toni Franović, whose Jewish roots encompass Styria, Prekmurje, Hungary, Čakovec, Legrad, and Zagreb, is a recognisable author and lecturer abroad as he has been present on the international art scene since 1989. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Zagreb in 1993, he started to work for the WUJS Institute in Arad (Arad Arts Programme), where he lectured in landscape painting field work. Later on he became a visiting professor within the field of spirituality art at the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. At the end of 1995 Franović accepted a position at the Department of Painting and Drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. After that he became a guest lecturer at the Kresge Academic Center in Washington, at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and at Boston University. Franović’s works of art are kept in many public and private collections throughout Europe, the United States, and Israel. Amongst his more important artistic creations on public buildings are the Nama department store in the city centre of Zagreb, the interior of the Zagreb Jewish community seat and the synagogue in Osijek, the Jewish Ohr Kodesh Congregation Centre in Chevy Chase, Maryland, Oxnam Chapel in Washington, DC, WUJS Institute in Arad, and the exterior of the Podravka Sales Centre in Koprivnica.
The Tikkun Olam exhibition consists of a series of works of art from the author’s latest opus, which is mainly characterized by images of nature and impressions through which the artist questions the importance of personal and creative responsibilities in a world of increasing artistic trivialities.
At the opening ceremony of the exhibition, the artist and his work will be introduced by the writer, screenwriter and film critic Branko Šömen from Zagreb. The cultural programme will be performed by the guitar player Jana Fridau, a student from the college of art ‘Umetniška gimnazija, Maribor’, under the supervision of her mentor Sašo Lamut.
The exhibition has been prepared in cooperation with the Maribor Synagogue, the Institute for Culture and Promotion, Lendava, the Lendava Synagogue, and the Brabro Cultural Society from Zagreb.
