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Yoav watches Ziv, who seems to be speaking both to Yoav and to the space itself

two artists observing one another. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say: Yoav follows Ziv with his gaze, while Ziv continues in his own rhythm—working in the open desert landscape, at a remote, unmarked site, without community, without framework, without any expectation of visibility.

This encounter raises a profound question: what is the meaning of art created beyond the range of sight? What drives the urge to place a sculpture—an object, a construction—in space, before the light, the sand, and the sky, without anticipating the viewer’s returning gaze? An action without reaction; an act for its own sake.

Yoav travels with his camera to the distant point where Ziv is working, and photographs him. And if Yoav hadn’t come—would Ziv still have placed his sculptures in the landscape? The answer is likely yes. Ziv is an artist unto himself, one who escaped the boiling center of the art world, distancing himself as far as possible from the crowded heart of Tel Aviv, and merging into the desert void—accompanied by a bird, a cat, a cigarette’s ember, and a wool hat.

There, he performs his actions: a personal form of performance in space, coded by his own reflections and ideas. He installs memento mori in the desert—a skull of iron wire, coated in local mud, like a fossil bearing witness to the death that pervades all things, a transmission from another time.

Ziv is a working, laboring artist. Each morning he rises to fulfill his daily task—another link in his mapping of space: a sculpture that converses with wind, time, and emptiness. His asceticism lies in everything—in his clothing, in his long exposure to the sun, in his hard work and endless persistence.

Yoav—entirely camera, entirely eye—remains unseen. One might say: he is friend, companion, witness, providing his sculptor friend with the minimal gift he doesn’t even think to ask for—the returning gaze, reflection, affection, and mystery.

Text by Tali tamir. translated by Yoav hirsch

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