Makom-Al-Makom_catalog-new

E17 A work from Ullman's Containers (1988) series named Midnight (figure 6, see p. 15) consists of a large iron container which has been cast in the generic form of a house and holds a pyramid of red sand. Like Chair , this sculpture relies on Ullman's technique of keeping sand in dangerous equilibria while creating a deceptive impression of firmness. Taking up Freud's concept of the uncanny in its original German formulation, we might say that if Midnight is a home, it is profoundly unheimlich . It is a home haunted by its own fragility. Day (figure 7), another work in the Containers series, is the obverse of Midnight . It sets forth the same generic house, but in a negative form. Here, the home is a hollowed-out mass, which – collapsing in on itself – could become a massive tomb. Themotif of the hollowhouse, a negative formcarved in earth, recurs throughout Ullman'swork. It returns in Sand Table , presented at the 2019 Jerusalem Biennale (figure 8, see p. 16). Having been punctured through with a house-shaped aperture, the base of the iron table frame lets sand drift out, leaving a sloped crater in the shape of Ullman's generic form, the ghostly home. As in Day and Midnight , the larger earth sculptures, the work relies on a delicate equilibrium ensured by slanting the sand at a liminal angle, thus destabilizing the home's foundations. Ullman's experimentation with perforated sand tables commenced in the wake of a visit to the Auschwitz death camp. 10 His iron tables, with their perforated bottoms, betray the promise of support and containment; of firm ground. As in the case of Sharabani's Sand Table (figures 3, 4), in Ullman's works the ground preserves only the faintest traces of those presences to have left their imprint upon it. In making an aesthetic leap from earth sculptures to new media, Sharabani broaches a similar concern with instability and transience, in the domain of virtual reality. And yet, the grainy materiality of sand endows these works with a distinctly sensual appeal. Significantly in this respect, visitors to Sharabani's installations are hard put to distinguish between the virtual objects projected onto the sand and the concrete materiality of the medium itself. The surfaces and mounds of sand in both Ullman's and Sharabani's work induce a strong desire 10 Zalmona, Sands of Time , 2011. Figure 7: Day , 1988, From the series "Containers", Iron and red sand ( hamra ), 178X240X320 cm. Israel museum, Jerusalem: Beverly and Raymond Sackler, New York, B88.0235; Photograph: Israel museum, Jerusalem / Avraham Hay