HILI GREENFELD: THE SWEET WATER CANAL
Hili Greenfeld The Sweet Water Canal
Hili Greenfeld The Sweet Water Canal
Instllation photography: Noam Preisman
Exhibition overview:
The exhibition The Sweet Water Canal centers around several paintings and objects that were taken by an Israeli soldier from an Egyptian home in the Yom Kippur War. Decades later, the soldier – who became a painter and was Greenfeld’s art professor – was surprised by the resemblance of her works to the paintings he took from the Egyptian painter. He shared the objects he had taken with her, which led her to search for cultural and artistic associations between Israel and Egypt. In the exhibition, Greenfeld creates a tribute to the anonymous Egyptian painter, displaying the original objects looted from him alongside his recreated desk and 'Coveted Objects for Plunder': hybrid reconstructions based on the loot taken by the soldier, and “Egyptian” commodities brought from the British Museum’s gift shop. It is one of the museums with the largest Egyptian collection in the world. The installation serves as a practice of storytelling, set against various historical narratives, and addressing the private story of the plundered paintings as a means for raising questions concerning the cultural associations between Israel and its neighbors.