Rami Maymon

Montage, 49 X 41 cm., edition of 5+2AP, 2015

In this work, the photograph loses its power as the evidence of an event and becomes a hybrid which contains contrasting elements such as interior and exterior, light and shadow.

The source of this work is a plate glass, found in Beth Shemesh, next to Jerusalem. The early photograph was possibly taken by American tourists at the beginning of the 20th century in a time when missionaries, researchers and tourists arrived to the Holy Land in search of the oriental character; whom they imagined wandered in robe-clad through biblical landscapes, with a cloth wrapped around the head, holding a clay pot. A stereotype portrait  which was often posed in photography studio.

By dividing and then rejoining the pieces differently, the distinction between what is in the foreground and the background, between what is lit and what is dark disappeared. Maymon created a work in which oriental images swirl and form a surface cut in a cross and its different pieces disrupt the chronological order to a new historical perspective.