Israeli Objects exhibition. Jerusalem, Israel December 2002-February 2003

Curator

Tzofia Dekel 

The work deals with local materials culture which characterizes Damascus mosaic inlays furniture.

Mosaic inlays where created since the 13th century by Damascus workshops. However the sitting posture in the Levantine salons was on low stools. Only since the 19th century, due to the influence of European culture on the Ottoman Empire, the Damascus craftsmen began to produce European style furniture with Damascus mosaic inlays.

The chair shown follows that trend by using an old chair from the days of the declaration of the State of Israel, made in the lean European tradition, and enriches the design with Damascus-like mosaic inlays. The inlays are made of visual materials, in the pattern of human brain cross sections. One cross section is the “Visual Cross Section” which provides the interpretation of eye-to-brain signals.

The joint between aesthetical decoration and medical images links with the fact that nature, as perceived today, is the obscure and internal, of which we have an un-aesthetic aversion.