TAL AMITAI-LAVI

On May 24, 2001, the dance floor of the Versailles banquet hall in Jerusalem’s Talpiot industrial zone collapsed. The tragedy caved in under the feet of hundreds of celebrants, killing more than twenty and injuring over three hundred. This devastating image has been etched into the consciousness of many Israelis as a metaphor for the nightmarish quality of Israeli reality.

At the entrance to her exhibition, Tal Amitai-Lavi spread a "red carpet" that leads the viewers/guests into the exhibition space (Untitled, 2003-2004). The carpet recounts the story of an illusion and its shattering. Incorporating excerpts from the tragic testimonies alongside banal wedding phrases and a blessing from her own ceremony, Amitai-Lavi reveals a detail from her personal biography that may shed light on the affinity between the collective Versailles disaster and her private Versailles disaster—the great promise of her marriage that has shattered. She has distilled the pain of separation, disappointment, and disillusionment into five sculptural objects. The most conspicuous object is an empty image of a bridal car (Untitled, 2003). Shimmering on the wall is a golden inscription reading “happiness” made of wedding rings (Untitled, 2003). On the opposite wall appear the bride and groom, represented in the form of empty plaster molds (Untitled, 2004), alongside a wine glass installation that imitates structures prevalent in wedding halls (Untitled, 2004). The artist extracts pure sculptural values from commonplace structures, transforming them into empty shells. The display space as a whole is signified as the site of an evaporated promise, presenting the dream of happiness as a mere ephemeral illusion.