Backroads

A photography book bringing together over a decade of work by Daniel Tchetchik, the artist and founder of Haaretz’s photography blog. The book was published approximately two years after the exhibition “Days Before Darkness”, presented at MUZA (Eretz Israel Museum) between January and June 2024.

This is how the curator—who also edited the book—Sofie Berzon MacKie, wrote about the body of work: "Daniel Tchetchik's exhibition 'Days before Darkness' unfolds a harsh world in which one survives by the power of love. Tchetchik depicts a philosophical, mythical, spiritual, and moral process, spanning our best and our worst. The artist presents us with an archetypal realm of crisis and chaos, shedding light on their inherent potential for inner transformation, which in turn will resonate back into the world left behind.

Tchetchik invites us to walk beside him on a journey, a quest, an odyssey following the protagonist. It is a rite of passage that involves parting with a comprehensible world of symbols, with clear contours, distinct forms, and specific spatial and temporal anchors. The trees crumble, fand og descends on the horizon. The surface is scorched, and a creaking compass rose stands on a rooftop. The photographs are grainy, the images disintegrate and dissolve into the dark walls. Some are overexposed, hurting one’s eyes like a blinding sun.

The artist, in contrast, embraces and presents in the palms of his hands, daydreams and a delicate memory: leaves resting on a bed of crystal-clear water; a last ray of shimmering sunlight; blue skies hanging above a house; bright lights shine through the annihilation. These are inner forces that have the power to ward off death and stand up against the forces of dissolution. Moments of compassion and grace draw a gentle but determined line, a road map to the beginning of a fresh dawn; a quiet wind that, if we listen closely, will lead us back to the shore of a new world."