TAL AMITAI-LAVI

Only three elements comprise this site-specific installation, generating a succinct, close-knit architectural-sculptural setting in black and white: A monumental drawing based on photographs of a house damaged by the deadly Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (2005). The drawing was created by attaching black sewing threads to a Perspex surface, while emphasizing the unraveled thread ends, which intensify the sense of transience.
A colonnade of round columns, echoing and duplicating the four colonial columns in the façade of the historical gallery building. The eight columns – produced by stretching thousands of ultra-thin transparent nylon threads – shimmer in the dark under light beams which emphasize their transience and fragility, undermining both their functionality and the separation between the building's interior and exterior. The concrete from which the support columns are made was replaced here by an airy, transparent string structure, a column's shell, a marking in the space.
A threshold of a door shifted slightly open to a dark interior. The door and the lintel were made by stretching criss-crossed fishing line. Here too, the optical illusion is misleading, and it is unclear whether the space beyond the threshold is real or imaginary. The play of light makes the door appear as if it were hovering, producing a mysterious illusion of depth, like being swallowed into another dimension.