De Chirico

​

Local Newspaper Jerusalem

30/10/92

‘Nidbach’ - De Chirico / 1992 - The Artists house, Jerusalem

Curator: Chaim Lusky  

 

Yoram Vidals’ photography has a magical and nebula quality. The works by Yoram Vidal are accompanied by texts written by Uri Lotan “Memories from dads’ house”.

 

“Once on a full moon night, Chiono went to the well, and returned with two buckets filled with water. Suddenly, she noticed the reflection of the moon in the buckets water. She was so fascinated. The moon looked so beautiful, yet so distant, so incomprehensible, and she kept on walking while looking at his image in the water. Up till that night, she was so busy with her work that she ever had the time to look up in the sky. The sight was so pretty that she stumbled and fell and the water she pumped spilled. Chiono looked at the empty bucket, the on the full moon “Now I have no water in the bucket” , she then said, “ but there is no moon in the water as well”.

The reflections presented by Yoram Vidal first pass through a deep immersion in a murky swamp. His photographs are the complete opposite from a glass of clear mineral water (Water of Eden): They are loaded with sediment and wearing steamy fog, bluish and dark. The prints are dark and gloomy, and the bits of light bubbles which float in them are very rich and colorful. Moreover, the work arrangement in the space covers more than it reveals. In the entrance a photograph titles “Butterflies” is presented, it is pinned onto a framed message board, and the butterflies also flew to the board hanging on the opposite side and were pinned the same way.

The overall feeling is that the artist set something arbitrary and momentary, in a kind of a private mood which gets clearer in the rest of the photographs in which he does reveal, In which an enchanted world is presented. The attempt to decode the picture is impossible due to the thick fog, but that must be the intention, because the slightest clues that are there, indicate on the traditional surrealistic painting. The juxtaposing refers to the space and built it as an illustration to the concealment idea. “What is missing is an illusion, not less than what there is”. I wish the juxtaposing could transfer the enchanted feeling the images do.