Screening, 2019, Shirly Bar-Amotz,Yaniv Kneller
Updated: Mar 25, 2021
Photo: Hadar Saifan
What
Traditional Hebron glass vessels, silicone; hand blown
Who
Shirly Bar-Amotz, b. 1974; Yaniv Kneller, b. 1972
Why
Shirly Bar-Amotz and Yaniv Kneller’s work was created following a special tour of the museum, which they undertook in the company of curator Henrietta Eliezer Brunner. As they recall, “We walked down a narrow staircase to the collection of the Glass Pavilion. There, on a shelf behind a door, ordered like outmoded souvenirs, was a collection of hand-blown Hebron glassware. Once found in almost every Israeli household, it has since practically disappeared.” Bar-Amotz and Kneller’s work attends to these forgotten objects. They present us with a limited repertoire of original glass vessels created in the city of Hebron, which they have covered with a thin layer of silicon, whose marks are only apparent in the melted material on the bottom of the objects. Their work calls attention to a 600-year-old local craft industry, which has been disappearing in recent decades. According to them, the addition of the insulating layer, which does not allow for direct contact with the glass, symbolizes the policy of separation and division that is implemented in Hebron, and which has been disrupting the life of its residents since the massacre in the Cave of the Patriarchs 26 years ago.
Where
On display in the Glass Pavilion, Tel Aviv Biennale of Crafts & Design, MUZA – Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv.
