Gallery G-77 presents an exhibition by Israeli photographers Anna Hayat and Slava Pirsky titled ‘Existence,’ as part of the program KG+ (Festival Kyotographie 2024). 13-28 April 2024

Anna Hayat & Slava Pirsky’s “Rifts, Joints, and Rifts” showcases unique fabric-printed photographs, some hand-sewn and embroidered, evoking pain. Shot on discontinued Polaroid film, the images bear random stains, resembling early analog photography but with distinct differences. Inspired by Kintsugi, the duo’s sewn pieces emphasize joints, echoing a sense of urgency amidst the Ukrainian war. Dr. Smadar Sheffi notes their artistic dialogue between photography and painting, citing parallels with Jean-Louis David’s “The Death of Marat,” imbued with Christian symbolism. Hayat & Pirsky’s wreathed peonies evoke surrender, intensified by patches and threads, evoking despair.

Like an image resurfacing in a vague memory, enveloped in a crust of oblivion, these images exist in an enigmatic, faceless space. The landscapes and portraits occur in a place that is no place, and a time that is no time, therefore constantly in motion between the tangible and the supposed.

Time is not like a stream, but like a huge evenly breathing reservoir. The waves of time monotonously pile on and recede, revealing a blurry landscape, the profile of a woman or a noble sphynx cat.The person in the interior is like a false memory, like a still life, like an ikebana. A vain attempt to remember a dream that is rapidly melting in consciousness. A skeleton, a ghost, an echo of a dream.A perspective, a landscape, like an eternal recurrence.But a recurrence with minor, but at the same time catastrophic changes, defects, damage. Time breathes: an eyehole in a window frosted forever.