BLIND MAN'S BLUFF

Installation, 2002 - 2009

Technique: installation & works on paper

Dimensions: 200x180 cm

Tova Osman Gallery, Tel-Aviv 2002

Galerie im Heppächer, Esslingen, Germany 2003

Pyramid Center for Contemporary Art, Haifa 2009

This is a site-specific installation. It was created for a window gallery, which is located in one of the main and busy streets of Tel-Aviv. This site enabled exposure of the work to both gallery visitors, and “non-interested” passing-by people, who were "forced" by the image to stop. The work was created a year and a half after the second “intifada” started. The unbearable situation and sensation for both sides, the Israeli and the Palestinian, was a catalyst for the installation.

It is echoing a famous children’s game by the same title*.

The situation presented: a self-portrait photograph blind-folded with rubber cables around eyes and head, a sign, wall painting and a screen made out of rubber cables. When Vision, a main communication channel between people is blocked, our basic ability to function is shaken. How do we then perceive our current reality? Who will become the next "blind person"? Whose eyes will be blind-folded, his eye-sight blocked while running around being misled by others?

This is an installation of signposts, in the colors of nature's warning signals. This situation expresses the fragility and elusiveness of our being. Our own inherent limitations are mirroring the nullity of the human and undermine the reliability of our vision and world view.