Eitan Vitkon

"Blowing in the Wind"

Feinberg Graduate School / David Lopatie Hall of Graduate Studies, Weizmann Institute of Science

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In our need for order and stability, we are accustomed to see the straight lines in the buildings of cities like New York as a sort of validation of a “good” world order. The photographs of Eitan Vitkon infringe on this sense of security. The sight of buildings that are blowing in the wind or swept in a current are disturbing, indicating uncertainty.

The photographs are created with mirrors made of metallic foil or soap bubbles – two materials that, despite their “weakness,” manage to overpower the tall buildings and redesign them as something dynamic. The image is of a parallel reality that is changing and flowing, but definitely not benign. This world view is surprising in light of the fact that Vitkon is a trained architect – a field that aims to create a fixed, enduring reality.

In the series of ocean photographs, Vitkon goes in the opposite direction, using precise timing to secure and situate a moving wave. Together, the two series of photographs are a sort of reality check: We experience a growing doubt as to whether what we see is “clear and understood.” Stable buildings are swept off their foundations so that we can’t know where they will be a second from now; while the waves that we have understood to be a phenomenon of continual movement are shown to us as something that is surprisingly solid.

What then is reality? Are Vitkon’s photographs nothing but a technical manipulation – an optical effect? Or do they expose a deeper property of the real world that is hidden beneath the cloak of our sensory perceptions?

Curator: Yivsam Azgad

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