A Photograph Of My Mom
Yoav Erteschik | Curator: Gaston Zvi Itzkovitz
Yoav Erteschik presents his first solo exhibition at Makom LeOmanut ('A Place for Art'). The exhibition features photographs and one video work, the product of a physical and emotional journey into the past. Yoav embarks on this journey with his mother to accept the past and understand the present. During the drive, thoughts and questions will surface regarding his mother's unrealized potential and the hope that the shared journey will revive what has been lost.
Twenty-one years ago, Erteschik's mother was involved in a serious car accident, as a result of which his brother was killed and his mother was severely injured. On January 8, 2023, they set out on a seven-day journey from Tel Aviv to Eilat via Mitzpe Ramon, the Dead Sea, and then up to Jerusalem. The route unfolded not only in the geographical space but also in the emotional one. The decision to go by car, the very object that has forever changed the course of the family's life, was a fraught and conscious move. The physical drive across the length and breadth of the country becomes a journey through the channels of memory. Perhaps, at the road's end, Yoav and his mother will succeed in shaping a new, shared memory.
The first time I looked at Yoav's photographs, a question arose in me: what am I not seeing here? Is the real story hidden in what does not appear in the picture?
The well-known photographic concept of 'the absent present' does not apply here. On the contrary, the present is indeed present. However, it is the absence of that life course that has passed and is no longer that lies at the core of the image. Yoav observes the present and, through it, gently and painfully touches the past.
The photography here is not just documentation of reality. It attempts to ground the mother, whose life is currently conducted in imaginary realms, and bring her back - if only for a moment - to the present. Photography does not provide unequivocal answers. It offers a renewed look at what has already happened and perhaps Yoav's hidden longing to encounter the mother from before the accident.