Sigalit Landau
Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv
Sigalit Landau (in collaboration with Yotam From)
detail of Salt-Crystal Bridal Gown VI, 2014
Color print
64×43″
Photo Yotam From, Courtesy the Artist and Hezi Cohen Gallery
Navigating New York City’s renowned Armory Show can be a most daunting task.
High-profile dealers hunt with the stealth and savvy of sharks. Unapologetically shiny, colorful, and monumental artworks line the walls, proving that stimulation and excess are galleries’ strategic keys. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed amidst the feeding frenzy buzzing with millionaires and celebrity collectors. If not on guard against the visual noise, one is in danger of drowning in the extravaganza. Yet, the madness is an essential part of the fun, and there is much heart and intelligence to be found in the Armory Show’s 2016 edition.
Installation View of Restive Products, 2016
Hezi Cohen Gallery at The Armory Show
Courtesy the Artist and Hezi Cohen Gallery
Upon entering Pier 94, my intention was to search for stories, for personalities, for passion—the booths that transcend the stereotypes of a big-money art fair. This voyage led me to the Dead Sea. The solo presentation at Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, that featured multimedia artist Sigalit Landau (b. 1969, Jerusalem) immediately captured my focus. Even from afar, I knew that Landau’s project, Restive Products, did not merely rely upon its aesthetic appeal, but also possessed a palpable narrative tension.
Sigalit Landau (in collaboration with Yotam From)
Salt-Crystal Bridal Gown III, 2014
Color print
64×43″
Photo Yotam From, Courtesy the Artist and Hezi Cohen Gallery
Sigalit Landau (in collaboration with Yotam From)
Salt-Crystal Bridal Gown VI, 2014
Color print
64×43″
Photo Yotam From, Courtesy the Artist and Hezi Cohen Gallery
Two life-size photographs of an ornate, dark-colored gown submerged in greenish, glowing water serve as the visual entry point into Restive Products. The prints, which Landau made in collaboration with photographer Yotam From, are from her 2014 series, Salt-Crystal Bridal Gown (III and VI displayed here). As usual, I first allowed myself to experience these images instinctively, without additional context. The work’s mysterious, eerie tone instills a sense of the sublime. The dress seems to be simultaneously floating and frozen in the water, standing isolated, commanding in its presence. The resulting sensations obscure the viewer’s perception of time, place and narrative content.
The vintage dress, layered in brilliant white crystals that have accumulated on the fabric, exudes nostalgia. To achieve this effect, Landau relied upon the unique properties of the Dead Sea. By submerging the dress, along with other objects in the installation such as ropes and shoes, in the hyper-saline waters for weeks, Landau subjected the materials to a salt-crystallization process. As the salt crystals gathered over time, nature became the sculptor, and the original objects underwent poetic formal transformations. The photographs depict a dress consumed by this process; the fabric deteriorated due to the sea’s extreme salt content. The ephemeral sculpture, along with the accompanying photographs, parallels performance art in its emphasis on process and duration. Landau seeks to articulate the symbiotic relationship between the “formative, living act of creating, and the final restive product created.” In her quest to capture time and experience in matter, the artist harnesses nature’s power to build and destroy.
Installation View of Restive Products, 2016
Hezi Cohen Gallery at The Armory Show
Photo by the author for Arcade Project
Installation View of Restive Products, 2016
Hezi Cohen Gallery at The Armory Show
Photo by the author for Arcade Project
The quiet, haunting beauty of the Gown photographs sets the tone for the rest of the installation. On the opposite wall of the booth, three photographs depict shoes covered in salt crystals, resting on a lonely, frozen lake in Poland — the Dead Sea salt slowly melting the ice. Interested in making connections between peoples, places and eras, Landau activates political and poetic realities in these works. An expansive table in the center of the booth displays an array of objects illuminated by spotlights: crystallized corsets, women’s shoes and a noose glisten with Dead Sea salt. These charged objects mingle with metal sculptures, two hatchets, an anthropomorphic urinal, and pink, fleshy forms encased in glass and epoxy. Observing the strange collage, a dynamic array of narrative potential springs to life.
I decided to investigate, and a representative from Hezi Cohen told me the story of The Dybbuk. Written in Russian in the mid-1910s and translated into Yiddish, The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds is a play by S. Ansky. The plot centers around a young woman, Leah, who becomes possessed by a vengeful spirit known in Jewish mythology as a dybbuk. In this tale of black magic, the protagonist is plagued by the dislocated soul of her deceased beloved. After his death, disagreements about whom Leah will marry play out in court. Destiny, religion and custom complicate the situation, making it painfully clear that all decisions are manipulated by men. The play culminates in Leah’s exorcism. As the dybbuk is forced out of her, she is reunited with her love in death.
Sigalit Landau
Glory, 2014
Net courset suspended in the water of the Dead Sea
19.5×14.5×18″
Photo by the author for Arcade Project
After hearing this story and considering Landau’s desire to be a ‘bridge-builder’ across years and cultures, I began to weave together the didactic elements of Restive Products. Her intentions are both highly personal and political. The salt-crystallized bridal gown in the photographs could belong to the woman in the play. The dramatic changes and ultimate disintegration observed in the dress parallel Leah’s transformations in life and death. Furthering Landau’s conceptual process, the submerged garment relates to women on a global scale, illustrating the strength and elegance that women can manifest even in the face of physical and emotional strife. Landau juxtaposes the highly feminine corset, Glory, with the inherently violent noose, enabling the artist to address the restrictions and pain involved in womanhood. This tension demonstrates the liminal spaces her practice analyzes: the enigmatic areas between beauty and decay, life and death.
Sigalit Landau
Three-dimensional wound, 2011
Watermelon, salt, alcohol, jar
7.4 x 6 x 11″
Courtesy the Artist and Hezi Cohen Gallery
Sigalit Landau
Restive I, 2016
Mixed media
19.5 x 3.5”
Photo by the author for Arcade Project
Evoking conflict, pain, and even suicide, the noose is echoed in the grotesque, bodily forms of Three-dimensional wound and Restive I. Here, the artist dried watermelon (another symbol of Israel’s natural resources) in alcohol and salt water and sealed it in a jar. There is a striking metamorphosis of juicy, sweet fruit into abject organic entity. The fruit’s red, shriveled flesh appears uncannily human and hints at corporeal abuse. When contextualized by the feminine attributes in surrounding pieces, notably the virginal yet degraded wedding dress, this visceral imagery alludes to the female body and its status and (mis)treatment in society.
Sigalit Landau
Rosary, 1998/2015
Synthetic plaster
17.5 x 25.5 x 19.5”
Photo by the author for Arcade Project
Colored with the pink tones of raw or healing skin, a nearby sculpture, Rosary, similarly evokes the body’s fragility. The large plaster urinal (Eastern-style, I was told) in the shape of a woman’s lower half exemplifies Landau’s success in forging multifaceted connections. The artist appropriates this culturally-specific object that has various functions and meanings. The urinal serves as a vessel in which men relieve their bodily needs, and it also references Marcel Duchamp’s radical readymade artwork, Fountain (1917). Playing on these associations, Landau expands existing notions when she reclaims the urinal and boldly “feminizes” its form. She positions her version of the inherently masculine object at the head of the table, designating it as a focal point of her installation. Transformed by the artist’s feminine energy, the sculpture asserts women’s independence and agency as makers of meaning. Interestingly, the sculpture’s title, Rosary, refers to a set of Christian prayers that primarily honor Mary, the ‘Virgin Mother’ and ‘Queen of Heaven.’ This link further establishes the respect that Landau’s female figure merits. While highly political in its message, the artwork continues to draw on the artist’s personal realm, illustrating her methodology of creating relationships between individuals and cultures. Whether using a wedding dress, a watermelon or a urinal, the artist adeptly explores the unities, disconnects and nuances in human existence and interaction—indeed, an Armory presentation worthy of self-immersion.
Liz Lorenz is a curator and arts writer based in Brooklyn, NY. She runs an alternative, nomadic gallery — The Outer Room — which shares art in a social atmosphere and values art for its power to provoke questions and self-reflection. Driven by passion, Liz advocates for work that can change social and political norms through its emotional and psychological potency. Her interests include feminist performance art, Fluxus, art of the African Diaspora, German Expressionism, medieval manuscript illumination and Outsider Art.