Zohar Gotesman combines traditional sculpture techniques with archaeological knowledge, pop culture images, and industrial materials. At first glance, his works may look like historical relics or monuments, but a closer inspection will uncover another rich and playful layer, peppered with tongue-in cheek references to our time. In the artist’s words, “I create contemporary doomsday prophecies out of old-school materials.”
His new work, displayed in the City Museum inner courtyard, is made of different types of stones and emulates a mound that seems to burst out of the ground, lifting up a table in the museum café on its path. The raised table reveals sculpted figures, piled on top of one another. The work’s title echoes the archaeological concept of “Tell” – a site where layers of ancient settlements have accumulated one on top of the other – as well as the name of the city Tel Aviv, which intertwines the past (תל, Tell) with the future (אביב, Aviv – spring). The sculpture combines images that reference familiar and esoteric moments, figures, sites, and events in the history of Tel Aviv and Jaffa: Tell Qasile archaeological site, the lottery of plots for Ahuzat Bayit, the Biblical story of the Prophet Jonah, the Camel of the Levant Fair, and more. The Tell brings to the surface fragments that were buried deep in the city’s subconscious, and with that, presents questions not only about the rich history of the place but also about our relationship with it.