Still Life? - PBF04 / Ilit Azoulay
15 November to 21 December 2019
Ilit Azoulay's images from the series No Thing Dies seem to create surreal and sometimes theatrical scenes stressing the duplicity of the museum. Her photos-cabinet of curiosity are embellished with elements in 3D.
No Thing Dies arises from the depth of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The museum was erected in 1965 with the belief that it would help embed the cultural identity of the young state. Her photographic series looks into the social layer that underruns this process for the past 52 years and perhaps shows how it sustains the illusion of a dialogue with 'the other' Middle-Eastern cultures.
During three years, Ilit Azoulay spent most of her days in the storage rooms of the museum, reviewing its collections, and interviewing various curators, archivists and conservators. She recorded these conversations and slowly discovered the many artifacts that never were publicly exhibited, along with stories about their original purpose, their journey to the museum, and the challenges of their preservation and display.
The selected objects were photographed, analyzed, classified and eventually they created an image bank which, to some extent, reflects the invisible life-long labor of the preservation, research, restoration and archival of these objects. No Thing Dies draws inspiration from the tradition of Persian miniatures books that were ordered by the ruling monarchs and praised his name and deeds.
