The firsts to activate me were land artists, and specifically Joshua Neustein. In one project, he walked a dog next to The Syrian border, while the dog peed on it. Neustein called the work 'Territorial Imperative' Artworks like this one connect conceptual art and image, and include humor, movement, and politics. In the end – it's a dog peeing on a fence. Peeing is primarily a masculine action, and marking a territory, declaring that something is "mine," is very political. And yet the action is whimsical, performative, even dance-like. I see the humor in it as well as the political statement.
I also created an artwork of a peeing dog. I took Saluki to the desert for three days and photographed him peeing there. The image is monochromatic, and the dog seems almost like a ghost. This was my tribute to Neustein. My works are also local. In a way, I also mark my territory.
The audience is the real material that I work with. I've used a variety of materials throughout the years, but human beings are always at the center. However, one recurrent material in my work is the cucumber. It was initially a kind of gay-erotic self-humor. If Sigalit Landau uses the watermelon, then I wanted to use some phallic vegetable, like the cucumber. This choice was mixed with symbolism and humor.
My works call for overcoming a mental barrier, for getting in and looking at details within an image that has been framed for us in a specific way. With the cucumbers, a trivial, mundane material becomes experimental through mechanical-yet-not-conventional actions, such as sewing it. Small actions become significant in the context of art and the space of the studio; they become layered with meaning. People keep sending me pictures of cucumbers, and it's something I really appreciate because it means that I got people to pay attention to something that they did not notice until that point.
I started studying at Bezalel in the photography department. During my studies, I realized I was interested in photography but less interested in presenting photography. Performance seemed more appealing to me, as a live action that takes place in a specific location. I am more interested in the action than its product, in the process – a bit like football or a concert, where the duration of the action is as important as its highlights. To this day, I don't document my work.
Tal Rosen, 36, Performance Artist. Lives in Ramat Gan.
