- Artist or Maker
- Tal Shochat
Israel, Netanya, active Tel Aviv, born 1974 - Title
- Shaked (Almond)
- Date Made
- 2011
- Medium
- Chromogenic print
- Dimensions
- Frame: 37 1/2 × 40 1/4 × 1 3/4 in. (95.25 × 102.24 × 4.45 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2014.175
- Collecting Area
- Art of the Middle East: Contemporary
- Curatorial Notes
Shaked (Almond) belongs to a series of portrait-like photographs, each one focusing on a singular
specimen of a different variety of fruit tree. As in this work, fecund trees are shot at night against a black
background and illuminated with artificial light, giving the plant an almost unearthly quality of perfection.
Trees, such as the Tree of Life, have a long history in the literature and visual imagery of the Middle East.
In more recent times, the tree, or the act of planting a tree, has come to be associated with the modern
state of Israel. Shochat’s photographs are often carefully staged moments in time that focus on ephemera
that will disappear or resume its former nature once the artificial lights are extinguished.
