HOME SWEET HOME
BY RUBI LEBOVITCH
My Home Sweet Home project is a series of photos of domestic scenes gone wrong. They can go wrong in many ways: they can seem absurd or twisted, arouse fear, or even horror. They show everyday household objects or activities in ways that reveal their senselessness, and their uselessness.
Inspiration (left image) for Passage (2015)
Inspiration (left image) for Passage (2015)
I get my ideas from the simplest everyday objects at home and on the street. There are so many weird and funny things that people do, collect or leave behind them that you can get inspired by. People’s oddities are the most interesting and inspiring things for me. Sometimes weird scenes I spot on the street become the inspiration for photos. I transform the outdoor scene into an indoor scene.
In many ways, Home Sweet Home was born seven years ago, along with my twin boys. During their first years of life, I found myself spending a lot more time at home than I’d used to. When they grew up a little and started playing and using household items in surprising ways, I began seeing new possibilities in every corner of the house.
Inspiration (left image) for Plant (2008)
Although the presence of people is evident in almost every picture, only a few of my photos show real people. Even when there are people in the photos, the focus remains on the object, and the person remains in the background. The people in the photos are seemingly occupied with common habits, but the objects almost come to life and take over the scenes.
“Home Sweet Home” exhibition at Janco Dada Museum in Ein Hod, Israel
Wool (2009)
DIVIDING LINE: ON THE WORK OF RUBI LEBOVITCH
BY ERAN BAR-GIL
It all happens at home. In the sheltered, secluded place. Quietly undermining its serene foundations, creating a sense of foreboding. A woman is knitting a sweater directly onto her body, wool threads scattered on the floor around her. Or perhaps she is unraveling it. Her serene demeanor and the mundane, domestic nature of her activity are contrasted with the impossibility of her actions.
It all happens at home. In the sheltered, secluded place. Quietly undermining its serene foundations, creating a sense of foreboding.
Closet (2015)
Toaster (2014)
Another woman, no less serene, places her hands into the toaster as if they were two slices of bread. Precisely at home, in the protected, private place—terror lurks: in the kitchen, in the living room, in the bedroom, in the familiar and intimate corners. Terror hovers in the children’s room where two cribs rest side by side, two cribs made up with clean sheets, and above them ripped posters that seem intentionally damaged, darkening the atmosphere. In spite of these inviting, made-up cribs, it is clear that no one would put their children to sleep in such a disturbing room. Scanning the room in an attempt to understand what is so unnerving about it, one discovers that the cribs’ safety bar faces the wall. It cannot be used.
Precisely at home, in the protected, private place—terror lurks: in the kitchen, in the living room, in the bedroom, in the familiar and intimate corners.
Knife (2013)
Gobelin (2008)
Sometimes the sense of the uncanny is created by extremities (a picture hanging on the wall, surrounded by endless nail holes representing failed prior attempts; a never-ending bunch of keys) and sometimes by unacceptable combinations (a bookshelf in which all the books are facing the wall or a bouquet of flowers made up of stems alone). Lebovitch takes things out of context and builds a different connection to create a sense of impending doom—like a scarecrow in the kitchen.
