Bes, 2021
Installation view
2021
Gauze fabric
Height: 160 cm, Width: 65 cm, Depth: 42 cm
'Digging Down – Art of the Pre-Future', The Bible Lands Museum,
Curator: Shira Friedman
The ancient Egyptian deity Bes was traditionally depicted as a grotesque dwarf with a distinctive hairstyle, serving as a protective figure for households, particularly for pregnant women and newborns. Archaeological artifacts associated with Bes, alongside other relics from the ancient Near East, are housed at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem.
The artwork "Bes" offers a contemporary reinterpretation of this ancient deity, transforming him from an object charged with mythological power into a benevolent spectral presence. The Bes presented in this exhibition is a less menacing, less wrathful figure—one that, perhaps not coincidentally, resembles the dwarfs of Disney more than the formidable protectors of Egyptian mythology. He appears almost caricature-like yet remains imbued with subtle layers of both tenderness and critique. Rather than reviving an ancient form, the work investigates how historical symbols are continually recharged with new meanings.
Here, Bes is not merely an Egyptian deity but also a softened, commodified figure—a smiling, child-friendly icon that reflects the commercialization of mythology in a world where every image can be branded and consumed. Through this ghostly presence, a deeper question arises: what remains of symbols that once held mystical or religious significance? Do they become mere caricatures of their former selves, emptied of meaning? Or do they continue to exert influence—albeit in transformed and unexpected ways?
The work is crafted from gauze—a lightweight, semi-transparent fabric associated with medicine and healing, yet also evocative of ancient burial shrouds. Its transparency allows these spectral figures to exist at the threshold between presence and disappearance, between materiality and spirit. Despite its fragile, ethereal appearance, gauze is surprisingly resilient, resistant to tearing.
In this duality, Bes grapples with themes of loss, memory, and history, inviting viewers to reflect on the shifting relationships between past and present, protection and seduction, material and immaterial—between the archaeological space in which it is displayed and the contemporary world it seeks to interrogate.
