“When I was 17, I visited Saatchi Gallery in London with my mother. At some point, I walked into a room that can only contain one visitor at a time. It was a long corridor that became more and more narrow as one walks. As I was walking, I felt like everything was shaking around me. I smelled engine oil, and when I looked down, it seemed as if an entire room was below. I could only assume that I was floating above ground. I left frightened. It was Richard Wilson’s work 20:50. Today I know engine oil was spilled on the floor and the reflection made it seem as if an additional room was below me. I was actually walking on the floor. It was such a simple gesture, but it made such a significant impact on me. That is what art can accomplish – it can create an experience that moves your mind and body. I believe art should be felt in the body, and this could be achieved by working with scents, with the body in space, with optics, for instance. This work enhanced for me what it is I wish to create in my art, to make something that can be felt.”
Saatchi Gallery, London, 1991
“Something that became quite important to me lately is addressing an issue that every installation artist encounters, and that is that installation works are practically disposable objects. Most of the time, my artworks are thrown away after the exhibition is over. Of course there’s a moral issue here, but it is not why I am interested in it. Beyond the environmental factor, I asked myself – why must the works be disposable? I decided not to create such works anymore. I want to work with materials that existed before I used them, and will continue to exist afterward. I want to work with something that has a history. My artworks engage with past experiences and events, so the material must be similar, must be used.”
Elinor Sahm, 35, multidisciplinary artist. Lives and works in Tel Aviv and Berlin. Current exhibition: “All Parts are in my Favor” at P8 Gallery.
“I always painted. When I was 12, I already had an oil paintings exhibition. I was always ‘doing’. My mother is an Israeli photographer and my father is a German journalist, but my German side has always existed mainly in theory. Today, I define myself as based in both Tel Aviv and Berlin because I travel between the two cities quite often and aspire to work in Berlin as well.”
“I am an installation artist, and my art deals with space. Printing and drawings are significant components of my process, but are rarely exhibited. I deal often with the concept of repression, as both a positive and a negative act. My current exhibition, “All Parts are in my Favor”, could not have come to life without repression. The works were made “with eyes shut”, and it allowed me to deal with issues that were too painful otherwise. I am not trying to tell people what to do or how to act. I am trying to say that these are parts of us we should notice, that we should see. And I do that through my own personal perspective.
The object at the center of the exhibition is the Weihnachtspyramide, ‘the Christmas pyramid’ in German. My family had one when I was growing up – a tall carousel that spins, holding candles. I was mesmerized by it as a child. Over the years, the pyramid fell apart, and so did my family. I was 12 when my brother committed suicide. After my parents’ divorce, I took the broken pyramid and kept it. It was like a relic of something that used to be wonderful. It contained both this wonder and a great rupture. I started incorporating it in some artworks and experiments, until it became the theme of an exhibition.”
