I know many people who got married out of good intentions, It would be better have they done otherwise…. And still.
Silence please,
Dear guests, I’m asking for some patience,
I know you are all anxious and expecting for the ceremony but we have a few technical problems, a little excitement towards the big moment?….!
Hedva Atlas Ben David presents in “Sacred” three main issues which gather to one truth concerning alliances and social rules according to which we live in:
Childhood, ritualism and family unit, marriage and relationships. The paintings in this exhibition are based on photographs taken 50 years ago in marriage ceremonies. A big part of the photographs was given to Hedva to keep and some were given to her after the marriage broke up. Amongst the paintings one can find Hedva’s own wedding.
The pictures were changed and made by Hedva some kind of a warning sign to this institution. Hedva approaches the issue and presents her thoughts that emerge out of the day to day reality. Hedva does not cling to nostalgic moments or drops of joy arising during browsing the family album, but “gets out the ambivalent moments, the unconscious moments between partnership and freedom of choice, between celebration and embarrassment”. *
Hedva paints her images in great sensitivity, examining body gestures and facial expressions, appear in the original photographs, but in her paintings Hedva presents the people restless, unmotivated, and sometimes she describes one who suffers because “the show must go on”.
I recall a humane gesture (though it’s meant to protect religion’s dignity) in Christian ceremony, when the priest asks a question, if any of the presents can think of a reason why this couple can’t be married. If anyone could stop for a minute and think of one good reason. Hedva deals with relations between a group and an individual, and for evidence she describes the people as participants in one event which unites them like in a ritual that expresses a belonging feeling, but a deep examination in the characters and their body language shows alienation.
A crash between individual and society is inevitable. This is because we know what criticism a young girl gets before becoming a newly wed. Hedva’s paintings show the ceremonies which have become in the years a role model, sometimes without considering as an individual but as a collective going in the only right way. The roots of this issue are deeper and maybe even get to the prime days of Israeli society.
The first room presents a painting (Adorned are our heads) of a little girl wearing a white festive dress, her head is decorated with flowers. By her side there's a painting of a bride on her wedding day (Those are not flowers). The encounter between the two of them reminds me of spanish Francisco Goya, who painted royal children in their early years, Goya added symbols of royalty, government and military leadership out of recognition with the role they have to play in their lives.
The little girl can probably symbolize the connection between the myth and dream little girls all over the world are raised with – one day they will become beautiful brides. Beside them there’s Hedva’s family. Most of it was tragically murdered during the holocaust. This painting is not only a documentation, but it represents the social role model of her fathers and grandfathers which they lived by and passed to the following generations. At the bottom of the painting there’s phrase from a Talmud legend “She held a candle and stood before him lightens from evening till dawn”. The place this phrase takes in Hedva’s work is another criticism turned against religious establishment which makes sure that the newly wed will take care and serve her husband so he can study torah.
In the inner room – “The escorts” – this painting tells the story of the escort in Judaism as an important issue. Walking together to an unknown place with someone who already knows the way. The escorts of the bride (her dress has turned red- implies maybe for a victim) are wearing black, holding and escorting the bride as if she was sentenced, and instead of being a source of power and strength for the bride, it seems that she is held against her will.
In “And they become one flesh” the image of one of the escorting fathers unites to a fantastic figure with a red cake, and again implies for a victimized character considering the presented wedding.
In “Composition” which combines the worlds of innocent childhood (maybe, as children, we are promised wealth and happiness until the end time) with mom along with betrayal in the escort scene. The falling figure reminds us of Jesus or falling angels. In both cases there’s the issue of sacrificing personal victim as part of the ceremony.
*Tali Tmir - catalogue for Hedva’s “Our baskets on our shoulders”, Kibuttz Gallery, 2003
Daniel Cahana Levensohn
January 2006
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