3,000 A YEAR

“Yifat Gat, in the work 3,000 A Year, touches upon the act of commerce, importing 3,000 artefacts from Semyonov, Russia, the town where in 1924 the first Matryoshka nesting doll was painted by a young girl. 3,000 – that is the inconceivable number of trafficked women smuggled into Israel each year. The Matryoshka embodies an archetype that is related “female craftsmanship”; the doll, an industrialised childish toy, expresses a primal, female desire for procreation. It brings the female act of reproduction to a grotesque, “industrialised” extreme – doll within doll within doll within doll… Endless containments and penetrations of girlish dolls. An ancient chronicle of women who are easily divided in two, turning into empty shells. Gat separates the dolls from each other and hangs each of them separately, endowing them with a new status of “wholeness” – closed and empty. Facing this enormous display of anonymity, a closer, more observant look is necessary in order to note each doll’s particular nuances: facial features, the eyes, a smile. The smaller the doll, the less details are painted on. Gone are the flower, the tie, the apron. On the smallest doll only a leaf remains. This hierarchy is also typical of the traffic in children, who are trained by older, more experienced “tutors”. The Matrioshkas are hung from strings, creating a colourful “bead curtain” – a common item in every brothel, semi-transparent, intriguing and inviting. But Gat’s curtain is almost fascistic in its dimensions, dwarfing the viewer.
Opposite the curtain, Gat installs the video Panda – a monumental (Russian) bear, inflated with air, full of nothingness. A small pin-prick would be enough to blow it up. It is part of a jumping facility for children in the center of Netanya. The photographed bear moves slowly forward and backward, a slow coital motion, like a parody of a porn film. Finally, the air runs out of the bear’s body and it withers and disappears.”

- Curator, Revital Perez

https://www.petachtikvamuseum.com/en/exhibitions/high-heels-in-the-sand/#work11

http://www.varldskulturmuseerna.se/en/varldskulturmuseet/

https://www.artistikrezo.com/agenda/arte-video-night-2012-4eme-edition-palais-de-tokyo.html