Final text + light sculpture images

The six-day war that erupted on June 5 of 1967 had completely reshuffled the region’s landscape by June 10. At the time, curfews were instated, that required that all sources of light be turned off, to limit exposure to enemy air raids. In order to circumvent the curfew, people started painting their apartment windows and their car headlights blue, making them less visible at night. Referencing the geopolitical context in which the Bull’s Head had been first discovered, Tabet experiments with the medium of light, and floods the gallery space with blue. The windows are covered with a blue transparent film, while sculptures produced using modified car lamps, hang from the ceiling, illuminating the space through their blue-painted bulbs.   

Tabet explores the material remains of temporary moments and takes us on a journey through continents and centuries, across seas, and decades, only to bring us back to a present situation that results from a multitude of seemingly unconnected events. Furthering Tabet’s inquiry into questions of restitutions and ownership, issues of cultural heritage and national identities that are the consequences of wider geopolitical histories, The Return discusses how, where, why and under what circumstances antiquities exist in our time.