Ronit Eden. Concept & Spatial Design offers curatorship and exhibition design
© Ronit Eden. concept & spatial design
Design: Cubicle Design
De Getekenden
Museum Sjoel Elburg, The Netherlands, 2018 - 2019
A site specific installation of Amos van Gelder and Amit Gur, curatorship and exhibition design
De Getekenden (The Marked Ones)
Hinted landscapes, portraits, and music embrace visitors as they enter the exhibition space: The Marked Ones is a total experience created especially for Museum Sjoel Elburg.
De Getekenden emerged from a collaborative effort between Amos van Gelder and Amit Gur, where they drew inspiration from each other’s work. As part of the creative process, Amos and Amit developed the visual and musical elements of the exhibition together, working in real-time in the same space.
The paintings on the walls portray empty landscapes; they present fragments from various periods in human history in which culture collapsed into itself, events such as the Crucifixion, the destruction of the Temples, and the Holocaust. Even though these milestones occurred in specific times and places, their implications are present decades later.
Placed between these imaginary landscapes are two family portraits created after photographs from ca. 1939. One painting portrays the Waaker family: Isaäc (Mozes) Waaker, who was the last rabbi in Elburg, his wife Elisabeth Drukker, and their two children. The other painting portrays the Cohens, the artist's family, celebrating the birthday of one of its members, Ru. Rabbi Waaker's family perished in the Holocaust, whereas some members of the Cohen family survived the war. In both paintings, each figure's head is adorned with a halo of words. These words join together to form a text which reconstructs a biography, and conveying a private pain.