Stephan Goldrajch — Yokaï, les esprits japonais — Xippas Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In 23 days: March 15 → April 19, 2025

Stephan Goldrajch’s second exhibition with Xippas Paris presents a new project inspired by a residency in Japan and his discovery of the Yokaï Museum. Focusing on traditional Japanese mythology, the exhibition invokes the figure of the Yokaï known as fantastical creatures that combine features of animals, humans and objects. Yokaï may be malevolent, mischievous or benevolent and also embody the idea of metamorphosis, as their nature changes frequently. Popular characters in Japanese folklore, Yokaï are omnipresent in the country’s oral culture and contemporary imagery be it cinema, animations or mangas.

The exhibition on view at the gallery brings together sculptures, objects and wall pieces made with crocheted wool, the artist’s preferred medium, as well as a series of watercolors that allude to different stages of his encounter with Japanese mythology. Brightly colored and deliberately naïve in appearance, they embark us on a collective journey and invite to revisit the popular myth.

Stephan Goldrajch was born in 1985 in Ramat Gan, Israel. He lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de La Cambre in Brussels and at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
Known for his crochet work, expressed through wall pieces, sculptures, installations and performances, Stephan Goldrajch reinvents popular mythologies through participatory projects. For his first solo exhibition at Xippas Paris in 2022, Stephan Goldrajch was inspired by the famous Bayeux Tapestry to create his crochet version. In 2021, he created a large-scale installation Arbre à Palabres for the EMST in Athens, where he reactivated African rituals by involving local associations. Previously, on the invitation of the Wiels Art Centre in Brussels, the artist invented Légende du Canal, an imagined story in which he invited residents of two Brussels neighborhoods separated by the canal — the popular Molenbeek and the commercial Dansaert — to collaborate on weaving flags.

He has published numerous books including “Huit récits fondateurs”, “Le Bouc épissaire selon Stephan Goldrajch”, “Masques” and “Poème d’Arménie”.
Numerous institutions have exhibited his work, such as the Embassy of Japan in Belgium (Brussels), the Centrale for contemporary art (Brussels), the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles(Paris), The National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST), the Jewish Museum of Belgium (Brussels), the Ixelles Museum (Brussels), the Haifa Museum of Art (Haifa), the Tanzmesse (Düsseldorf), among others.

His works are part of private and public collections: Yokaï Museum, Japan; International Carnival and Mask Museum, Binche, Belgium; Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels; URBAN Collection, Brussels, Belgium; P.O.C Collection of Galila Barzilaï, Brussels, Belgium; National Center for Space Studies (CNES) and FRAC Toulouse, France; Private collection, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.