Research for the Full Crypto-Taxidermical Index

Artist Tomer Sapir mainly deals with sculpture and installation. Sapir’s long-term research allows him to play with the distinctions between history, mythology and fiction and to point out the political and ideological use of “findings” and “facts” to tell a historical story.

Over the past decade, Sapir has created an ongoing project with unique lines in the local art field, entitled Research for the Full Crypto-Taxidermical Index. This project is a lexicon of objects and mutations that moves back and forth between the use or imitation of nature (research findings, collected remains, traces of what once was) and what is distinctly man-made (sculptures, use of synthetic materials). These creatures often appear in a compressed and traumatic moment that exists between a catastrophe that has already happened and potential imminent disaster—a biological epidemic, terrorism or a curse.

The monograph Sapir published (280 pages in hardcover) shows the development of his ongoing project in its various stages, over a decade. The works are presented as an evolutionary process that ranges from the creation of abstract organic configurations and questions of cataloging and sorting to focusing on the human presence and civilization, from dealing with the world and nature to dealing with home and family.