Don’t Say Water Water

Group Exhibition, Bat Yam Museum of Art, 2023

Curator: Hila Cohen-Schniederman

From the performance: Expanding the Vessel Ritual, Photograph: Tal Sachar

“Expanding the Vessel Ritual” was an integral part of the exhibition “Don’t Say Water Water,” held in May 2023 at the Bat Yam Museum of Art (curator: Hila Cohen-Schniederman).

The ritual was a broad action with many layers. In its essence, it requested that the separate entities – the artist, museum, and audience, succeed in merging into each other as if immersed in shared water. This image captures the moment the audience flows into the museum and follows me to the ground floor. A ritual is an action with a collective interest, where transformation takes place. Throughout the ritual, I created images that transformed like a stream of consciousness in which water had many changing appearances on the continuum from water as a symbol of life to water as a symbol of horror.

Throughout the ritual, we, the audience and I, moved against the natural water flow – up to the museum’s second level instead of flowing down. On the way up – I lay my cheek on the museum staircase bar. This intimate gesture is an attempt to connect my body to its structure, to expose and reveal the unique quality of its architecture. I close my eyes and let the movement of the bar (not my feet) take me up the stairs. If I am a body and the museum is a body, this is where I lay my head and rest.

Performance Documentation:

To Hold Water

The first from a series of sculptures I’ve created for the exhibition “Don’t Say Water Water” at the Bat Yam Museum of Art. Lay one on top of the other two completely generic glasses. The lower is connected to an aluminum pipe at a height of 4.5 meters. The upper glass is filled with water to its limit—a statue that functions as a temple. The water, lying quietly on the edge of the glass, evaporates and must be filled daily, emphasizing the day-to-day worship required by the statue.

Don’t Say Water Water, Installation View: Elad Sarig

Detail from: To Hold Water (Temple), Photogrpah: Elad Sarig

The second sculpture I created for the series “To Hold Water” was the “Pupil,” a copper pipe attached to the floor, filled with water about a millimeter above the spout, standing still at the height of an average person’s gaze. The water – a living substance, invites one to approach it and look into the black hole that gapes like a pupil. Each breath is felt, the water quivering a little as if inviting you to take a sip; a moment of union of the body with the object is created.

To Hold Water (Pupil), Photograph: Elad Sarig

I thought about a vase as an archetype for a vessel, and I created one from unburned black clay. I wanted to expand the vase by rubbing it against the museum’s walls so that the friction creates a drawing of a trembling line. I’ve completed a full round with the vase of the spherical structure of the Bat Yam Museum of Art. One line was enough. The vase remained intact except for the marks the friction against the wall left.