Lot 120
  • 120

Sigalit Landau

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 USD
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Sigalit Landau
  • Woman playing a Plaque Harmonica
  • metal armature, papier mache, readymade sheets of music, readymade harmonica with human teeth, chicken-wire
  • 31 1/2 by 49 by 26 3/4 in.
  • 80 by 125 by 68 cm.
  • Executed in 2005.

Exhibited

Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, The Endless Solution, 2005

Condition

The work is in overall good condition. There is surface dirt and small losses and holes in the plaster base. There are also losses to the plaster along the bottom edge of the base.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

The subject of a 2008 solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and selected to represent Israel in the 2011 Venice Biennale, Sigalit Landau has established herself as one of the foremost contemporary Israeli artists of her day. In 2005, she had a monumental one person exhibition/installation at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art titled Endless Solution in which this work was included.

Sigalit Landau discusses Endless Solution and describes the following: “The various exhibition spaces revealed inside were inhabited by groups of mostly figurative sculptures, in quiet scenes of communal living and survival. The male mythological figures were pierced by arrows and their visible erections indicated a hybrid existence as both peacocks and victims. The female figures were laborers busy carrying out chores of nomadic survival, while surrounded by flocks of sugared sheep, dehydrated rinds of watermelons-turned-lanterns, and salt-crystal objects. The figures were illuminated by a series of videos projected on the surrounding walls. Transforming the huge space to simulate a living environ in an indefinable period, with signs of Modernity, the show was built layer upon layer in chronological order… The title of the show, nevertheless, strongly alluded to the Second World War and the Holocaust…” (Sigalit Landau One Man’s Floor is another Man’s Feelings, 54th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Israeli Pavilion (exhibition catalogue), 2011 p. 55-56).

Woman playing a Plaque Harmonica, offered here, is one of the papier maché figures Landau created for this installation. The flesh-and-bones exposed woman is part of a Sisyphean community occupied with surviving their hostile habitat. She tries to calm her environment with music but her harmonica is made of huge, terrifying teeth.

In the exhibition catalogue of The Endless Solution, Mordechai Omer also refers to the figures from this installation and notes: “A tribe of twelve figures, all made of metal armature and papier maché, operates within the installation, their postures modeled on a slave scene in an Egyptian wall painting and snapshots of immigrant workers taken by the artist from her south Tel Aviv studio.” (Mordechai Omer in Sigalit Landau/The Endless Solution, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2004, p. 32).