Reut Ferster

Born in Tel Aviv, 1968
Lives and works in Kfar Saba and Tel Aviv

First plate, second plate, red tablecloth, my mother is setting the table. People enter, people leave, while my mother sets the table. Arranging the crystal with measured movements, matching flowers land on a white cloth, her practiced hand centers a plate, carefully ordering the silverware. Constantly working for me and for you, meticulously ordered patches of red, bright candles in complementary colors. My mother sets countless tables for countless people who come and go and who have never heard of Judy Chicago.
- Reut Ferster


Efrat Knoller

Born in Jerusalem, 1941
Lives in Ramat Gan

Efrat Knoller (Reut Ferster's mother) holds a PhD in philosophy, and is a lecturer in the political science department at Bar-Ilan University and at the Academic College in Safed. In this work, Reut Ferster films her mother setting the table, as she has done countless times in the past. She chooses to present her as a host, or "service provider," in the traditional domestic sphere occupied by women. Yet her video work is defined by a subtle twist that transforms the scene, endowing her mother with the aura of an artist/curator. The camera's elevated vantage point transforms the table she is setting into a large canvas, which she skillfully orchestrates into a composition as she fills it with patches of color. Her actions as she walks around the table, which is covered with a cloth, evoke the "choreography" created by Jackson Pollock as he painted on a canvas positioned on the floor. Ferster's documentation of her mother's work process was not cut or edited. The elevated perspective, meanwhile, enables us to experience the effect of the accumulating objects, which are slowly laid out in the process of preparing the table for a festive meal.