Lay Low

People often talk about a book as an object of desire, yours is exactly that. Even before the material, the bright yellow color catches the attention.

Both the color of the cover and its materiality came about from the work that is the center of the book—“Dancers,” which is a piece made from a punching bag that is spread open. Yellow is a color that I returned to a lot in my works, the color of survival. Because I come to sculpture from painting, colors always play a role for me. Whether it’s the relationship of black in relation to a space—the black swallows the space of the object, flattening it; whether it’s the colorfulness of camouflage or the bright yellow color of warning that’s hard to ignore. It eventually made its way into both fashion and advertising, but it started from survival.

Also the title of the book Lay Low is related to these places of survival—disappearance, and camouflage. My works sometimes disappear. Many of them are placed on the floor, some are transparent. Works that flourish from a place of collapse. Another thing with the name is the process of entering into a book. Actually, I lose something when I transfer things from three to two dimensions, and one of the questions that came up was how do I turn the book back into an object, which also involves a physical experience.

​In fact, your book comes in vacuum packaging, so the initial experience of it is very physical and not related to browsing. It’s an object that must be grappled with.

I made a small number of copies in vacuum packaging and gave them to people. The closed, hermetic situation connected to the works I was doing at the time, which used vacuum packaging. I like cutting things up, and I was sure people would want to open the package, tear it, do things to it. But no. People wanted to leave it like that, as an object in a vacuum.

And they asked for another one? 

Yes.

​Even when it’s not in a vacuum, the book is an object. It has a loop for hanging. Actually, it’s not meant to stand on a shelf but to hang on a wall or from a nail.

I made them this way, because the copies hung this way when we were working on the book in the sewing room. I created the book with the same sewer who has been working with me since 2009. We already have a very symbiotic and intense work energy. When we worked in the sewing room, we hung the books on the hooks there. I think that, as in many of my works, there is a gap between the possible action and the realization. Zippers that can be opened, things that can be hung, opened, closed. But for the most part it remains in the place of somewhat removed. I look for this break and this distance in works so it’s no wonder it happened here as well. The loop for hanging is not the only thing that happened in the process, for example the additional part on the exhibition in the Petah Tikva Museum. I don’t work in a very planned-out way, and leave room for things to happen from the material and the action.

​It’s worth dwelling on this for a moment. The book mostly encompasses your works, and gives a broad picture, and the small part, a kind of brochure about the exhibition in Petah Tikva, is really a kind of zoom-in on one project, which the book came out in close proximity to, but not as its catalog.

I had two motivations for the book. One was to give an overview covering the last nine years. From each period there was a work or two, not necessarily in chronological order. I see my work as one project, the internal divisions are due to exhibitions and deadlines, or because it is impossible to do everything together. The works can connect to each other. Basically, a book is an opportunity to present everything without the limitations of time. On the other hand, there was the moment of the exhibition itself, that I was very focused on. “Unreasonable Doubt” which was presented at the Petah Tikva Museum and at the same time also at the Young Art Biennale in Moscow. That’s why there is the part of the book that reflects this moment. From the entire overview of the works, a window opens to that time.

​And the visibility of this focus changed along with the work on the book?

The small booklet was designed in a different format and sewn in a different place. After we already produced it we saw that it wasn’t right. You can feel it only when you treat the book as a kind of sculpture. There is gravity, and thinking about paging through it, which was very important to me. And these are things that cannot be seen only through the graphic design. So we unstitched the binding and produced the booklet again and re-stitched it. It was at the very last minute, two days before the opening of the exhibition. That’s also what’s exciting about it, that you can’t know how a project wants to end. It’s like works are freed from the planning and have their own will.

​Not many people talk about a book in that way.

It was a dilemma. I wanted to publish a book, but because I come from thoughts about two dimensions becoming three, usually, it was difficult for me to think about the opposite move—the return of three-dimensional works  back into two dimensions. I tried to understand whether there is a physical presence or if its limited. Is there a body that is present or a body that becomes a sign—this is also part of the question of survival.

​A question that comes up multiple times when working on a book is whether to separate the texts from the works or to mix them up so that they exist side by side. You chose to separate.

There is something in the transition between the languages of the works, not only the visual but also of something that exists in space, the language of the text that exists in a parallel world. Any attempt to connect these languages ​​is not trivial. There is no hierarchy in the physical experience in front of sculptures, you can experience everything simultaneously. While text in most cases produces a kind of organization, I often try to allow things to exist without it. There are two texts in the book—one by Hadas Maor and one by Nicola Trezzi, but it was important for me to create a separateness; that the texts stand on their own and the works on their own.

​Nicola’s text is very surprising. It’s designed as a page of text opposite a page of footnotes, and it seems that the two columns have the same weight.

I think this text has exactly the same number of words in the main text and in the footnotes, or at least they occupied exactly the same place. It’s an unconventional decision, and whether you read all the footnotes or not, I felt like I accepted it like that, like a fact, like the work. The decision to design it in columns was related to the text as presence—to the lack of hierarchy between the text and the footnotes. I wanted the text to have a formal presence, as if it had real weight in the world of matter.

​I know there were many ideas about the cover of the book itself. There was a stage where you thought of using screws to connect the pages, all kinds of elements and materials that you use anyway.

The question came up regarding the distance the book should have from the works. It’s pretty amazing how much knowledge you gain in the field of book making while working on one. 

​In fact, each book went through several stops, not just the usual and generally the only one—the printing house.

The first step was “blind stamping”—stamping the name and illustration on the cover, when it went inside without color. Then, so that the book would be soft and flexible and have material movement, but on the other hand would have a grip and a certain resistance, we added another layer of material on the inside of the cover. I think a lot about lizards, I really like them—they’re in between soft and hard. It’s a bit repulsive, like jellyfish. I tried to produce something similar in the touch of the book—you can hold it but it is not hard, it quivers a bit in your hand. Something about it interested me. The pages themselves were printed at A.R Printing Ltd. For the sewing of the pages and the loop, I worked on each book with the sewer.  

​You sat and sewed every single copy?

I’m very involved in the work with everyone I work with, whether it’s a carpenter or a welder. Also with the sewer—I am there at every seam and we change things all the time. These are things that are difficult to know in advance, because these are not materials that are supposed to be sewn in this way. There were supposed to be 300 copies, and I have all the raw materials, but I haven’t completed all the work. I sat with him for weeks sewing the books, and we went over budget enormously in time and cost. But it was my fantasy to make them like that.

​There was no “aha” moment when you realized it was a center stitch and he could just keep sewing without you?

In principle it was possible, but for it to turn out the way I want it to, I or someone who is really involved in the process needs to be there. I tried and saw that in order for it to come out exactly, I can’t let it go. You need another pair of hands to hold the pages, to align them. It doesn’t make sense, it’s definitely not economical.  As soon as you want something that is not standard, and most places are not built for that, it requires big adjustments. You have to go hand in hand.

​So you won’t be doing another book soon?

I would love to do another book. From the time I did one, there’s a whole lot more that I haven’t done at the same time. I realized that a book is not like works that leave the studio for an exhibition, and it stands empty. When you work on a book, you’re working from reserves that can be taken out again, taken out differently. There is a lot of freedom compared to the format of an exhibition.

Where can readers get a copy?

On my website.