Books of Darkness and Light

The Hanukkah holiday is an opportunity to delve into light through artists' books that treat it as a living and defining material. The light in these books is not an abstract idea, but a physical presence that outlines movement, and conveys deep feelings of concrete times and spaces.

In The Times, Bezalel Ben-Chaim photographs the sun's movement as the earth revolves, with a camera that remains fixed for hours. The result is spectacular streaks of light, illustrating the cycles of nature, and the endless flow of time. In Yesterday's Sun, Uri Gershuni embarks on a journey through the village of the British inventor of photography, Henry Fox Talbot. With an improvised pinhole camera, Gershuni captures remnants of memory and consciousness—between the visible and the invisible.

Like Light on the Eye which has Adjusted to the Darkness by Eti Yaffe, is a unique handmade artist's book. Inspired by the "New Vision" movement, Yaffe combines photography, collage, printing, and transparent papers.

The catalog The Dark Land, Fields of Light, brings together a seminal body of work by the late Dalia Amotz. Edited by the late Sara Breitberg Semel, the catalog presents series by Amotz, the most well-known of which deals with the Gordian connection between light and landscape.

These books invite us to experience light as a substance that carries knowledge about the world, defines its shape, and affects human perception moment by moment.

21.12.2024