SIGALIT LANDAU

The Israeli installation, video, and performance artist Sigalit Landau (b. 1969 in Jerusalem) works with highly sensitive social, political, and environmental issues. Her works revolve around conflict, belonging, and vulnerability. Subjects closely connected to the history that characterizes her homeland.

Landau’s 16-minute video Salame’ consists of a single static shot of an unfinished high-rise façade in the Salame neighborhood in southern Tel Aviv. Over the course of the video, a person leans out of a window armed with a paint roller and paints the wall around the window black. The radial black strokes gradually form a circular surface around the window, ultimately leaving a striking black mark on the building.

In Jewish tradition, the eastern wall of a new building is often left unfinished as a reminder of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of the Jewish people. By painting on the unfinished façade, Landau brings this tradition into the present. The black circle can be seen as a quiet yet pointed commentary on the rituals and symbols that perpetuate historical trauma. At the same time, the black disc on the façade appears as a marker of a conspicuous target, raising questions about the extent to which a house can serve as a protected home in a region marked by intense cultural tensions and violent conflict.

Sigalit Landau is among Israel’s most influential contemporary artists. She has exhibited at Documenta in Kassel and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among other venues, and has represented Israel at the Venice Biennale. She currently lives and works in New York.