Michal Helfman
Untitled (Your Abstraction is my Reality)
Michal Helfman, Untitled (Your Abstraction is my Reality) , 2018, metal construction, marble, rug, c-print, fossil cast, 160 x 240 x 10 cm, unique
Untitled (Your Abstraction is my Reality)
Year:
2018
Mediums:
Wall piece: metal construction, marble, rug, c-print, fossil cast
Collection:
IL COLLECTION

The work Untitled (Your abstraction is my reality) consists of panels that are used as different visual representations of the same geographical place - the mountains on the border of Sinai and Israel.

This border has been used throughout human history as an intercontinental crossing point connecting Africa and Asia and is a historical smuggling route for refugees, migrant workers, drug goods and weapons.

Untitled (Your abstraction is my reality)  consists of different representations of the mentioned place: a photograph taken by Azaria Alon in the 1950s in which an unidentified human convoy is seen crossing the mountain chain, a slab made of granite, which is the geological mineral that characterizes this geographical area, a mat woven from recycled plastic that is used in Sinai and the Middle East at large and finally,  a casting of a fossil that was found at the foot of the mentioned mountains.

The work was initially created for the exhibition "Change" that took place at the Center for Contemporary Art  Tel-Aviv-Yafo in 2013 (curated by Chen Tamir).The exhibition dealt with the practice of smuggling and the Egypt-Israel border as a historical smuggling axis. In addition, the exhibition dealt with different methods to represent this reality: The installation on the first floor of the CCA presented a realistic hideout of smugglers from Sinai that was re-located inside a structure of the Freemason movement’s symbolic pyramid that also adorns the US Dollar bills.