Sapphire

The view of the world nowadays revealed through lenses and screens is akin to a window onto reality. Unlike a window, however, a “tsohar” conveys the pure truth, the origin. The creation of Sapphire – The Blue Fire, 2002 was inspired by notions of tsohar and water addressed by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav (1772-1810).

“Tsohar: some say it is a window, a skylight; others say it is a luminous gemstone (Rashi). The difference between a window and a precious stone is that a window has no light of its own, it is but a medium for light to shine through; thus, when there is no light, the window does not shine. A precious stone, on the other hand, shines of its own accord, even in the absence of external light. By the same token, there are people whose speech is like a window – it does not in itself possess the power to shine on, and there are others whose speech is tantamount to a gemstone – it is brilliant and illuminating in and of itself. These two levels of Truth are like the sun and the moon. The ultimate goal is for the “light of the moon to resemble the light of the sun.”

The book explores notions of inclusion, fine-tuning, and refinement. In a conventional hourglass, grains of sand trickle through to measure time in the world of matter. This very image is replaced by an hourglass containing water, not only on the vertical temporal axis but also along the four spatial axes, like an all-embracing consciousness.

The zohar (brilliance, illumination) contained within the 'tsohar' emerges in a diversity of photographs processed with paintings of the gemstone as a crystal that focuses, within a reflection, a selection of books on the book hierarchy as bodies of knowledge, or as a giant blue drop that has crystallized out of marine reflections.

In the process of leafing through, one frame is revealed out of another via actual paper cuttings, photographic transparencies, and a mesh of golden brass. The transition from one dimension to the next leads to the concluding frame that appears through a speculum – either a mirror or a lens – as a vision of the burning blue flame. The drop of water, the gemstone from the beginning of the book, merges with the flame of fire-light, forming the “Tsohar as Water,” thus bringing the reflection closer to the source.