What values do we defend? What everyday and cultic rituals do we perform and why? In which actions do culture, nation and religion manifest themselves?
The work of the Israeli artist Shahar Marcus revolves around these and similar questions. In his installations, videos and performances, he always uses his own body as the central artistic material. In addition, dough and bread become important ingredients in his works. Dough and bread have a considerable physical presence. They are formless and malleable at the same time, sticky and chewy or shaped and sensual. They taste and smell and have changing textures. They can be handled, in which case they are outside the human body, or they can be ingested. Moreover, dough and bread have multi-layered meanings. As a product thousands of years old, bread is deeply imbued with religious, ritual and cultural content. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu must eat bread to become human, and in the Christian Lord's Supper, bread evokes the presence of God and is eaten as a promise of transformation from death to new life. Shahar Marcus plays with such associations, inviting his audience to reflect on them. Contrary to the gravity of these themes, however, Shahar Marcus deals with his material in his own humorous and ironic way.