DeadSee by Sigalit Landau

DeadSee by Sigalit Landau

DeadSee by Sigalit Landau

That’s an image from the video installation DeadSee, which was on display earlier this year (and may be still, for all I know) at MOMA in NYC. And here’s a video of the latter portion of the work, probably best viewed with the sound off, because of all the tourist-generated rhubarb in the background:

And the artist’s statement:

In the wall-sized projection DeadSee (2005), a cord connects five hundred watermelons, creating a six-meter, spiral-shaped raft on the salt-saturated waters of the Dead Sea. Secured within this sculptural configuration, the artist floats with an arm outstretched toward a collection of “wounded” fruits, their intensely red flesh revealed. The nautilus form gradually unfurls, leaving the surface of the water a nearly monochromatic azure and the artist’s body exposed.

14 Comments (+add yours?)

  1. silverstar98121
    Aug 15, 2008 @ 16:15:09

    So I had to go to You Tube to see the video, and the piece in The Vulture says the exhibit closed July 28th.

  2. Jennifer
    Aug 15, 2008 @ 22:54:02

    Wow! That was fantastic. Thanks for posting-I hadn’t seen or heard about it. (And swimming in the Dead Sea is an interesting experience. One doesn’t “swim”.)

    One coming up for you in a few minutes at my place. :)

  3. raincoaster
    Aug 15, 2008 @ 23:34:10

    Thanks, looking forward to it.

    My mother went to the Dead Sea. She had fun, but she was never so sunburnt in all her life.

  4. Bunk Strutts
    Aug 16, 2008 @ 07:33:07

    What’s scary about that clip is that there are people right now, emailing each other the video link and discussing her “artistic genius.”

    What’s scarier is that this coming November those same folks are going to be standing next to you in the precinct booths unaware that they are voting for slime molds.

  5. raincoaster
    Aug 16, 2008 @ 08:48:56

    No, the slime moulds have to leave after two terms in office, Bunk.

  6. Bunk Strutts
    Aug 16, 2008 @ 09:21:48

    Ah, but then they morph and can run again, undetected. I’ve seen ‘em do it, honest.

  7. raincoaster
    Aug 16, 2008 @ 10:02:43

    That would explain Strom Thurmond. I always thought he’d died centuries ago, but wouldn’t stay buried.

  8. Bunk Strutts
    Aug 17, 2008 @ 06:27:36

    Explains Ted Kennedy as well.

  9. raincoaster
    Aug 17, 2008 @ 07:27:07

    Um, yeah in three or four months.

  10. Jennifer
    Aug 17, 2008 @ 16:16:02

    The sun here is like the sun in Florida. Having arrived here myself from Minnesota, I try to avoid it whenever possible. Oddly, though, the air at the Dead Sea is 10% denser than anywhere else on earth and that is supposed to help against burning. Regardless, no or low SPF sunscreen is a sure way to end the day looking like a peeling tomato.

  11. raincoaster
    Aug 18, 2008 @ 00:53:36

    Some day I’ll have a passport and a budget and will be able to travel around and see for myself.

  12. Frontier Former Editor
    Aug 18, 2008 @ 10:48:53

    I thought this was interesting (at least for prurient reasons) until I found Landau’s clip of nude hula hooping . . . with a ring of barbed wire. That was a bit off-putting.

  13. raincoaster
    Aug 19, 2008 @ 00:32:21

    Oooh, sounds like just my kind of thing! Must check it out!

  14. Trackback: For the watermelon buffs… « glass central canberra

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