Three human figures are placed facing the viewer at the end of a large telescopic structure looking across a vortex of monuments and forming a point of view from within the monument outwards. In this work, Avrahami replicates what he considers to be a series of anonymous monuments: human-sized structures of metal and stone scattered across the country, representing a private, local reckoning with bereavement and memory. The three outlooking figures evoke Walter Benjamin’s description of the Angel of History, who watches from a vantage point external to temporal events at the catastrophic unveiling of human existence.

At the same time, an exchange takes place between the figures and the viewer, who discover that they too are posited within the monument, subject to another’s gaze. This exchange reawakens the question as to what monuments are actually made of and how personal identity enables their meaning. 

photography: Tome bookshtein