Family Files, group show, The Jewish Museum, Munich, 2010. Curators: Galia Gur Zeev and Ronit Eden
Galia Gur Zeev and Ronit Eden (text for the catalogue)
"It was important for me to enlarge the photographs, to deviate from the usual size of the family album, to show the cracks, the dismantling seen in the photographs and relationships. For me, it was another way to examine the cracks in the family album, representing the fantasy of happiness. The gap between reality and what was visible from the family album was huge. I wanted to decode what wasn’t seen in the photographs; I hoped to find what they were hiding".
The group of images is taken from slides of the artist’s childhood, photographed with her family, from the period that the family spent in Paris as emissaries. Yarden returns to the family album to examine and seek in the existing images the gap between the happiness they represent and the truth that occurs in life. In the groupings that appear in this exhibition, she offers a discussion on what is apparent as opposed to what is hidden in the photograph. The words add a layer of meaning to decoding what is not seen in the photograph.
Since the completion of her studies at the end of the 1980s, Yarden has been carrying on a dialog with the family through the family album. In her other works, she integrates these images with material from daily life. Her family album, like most family albums, ostensibly resembles that of others. However, Yarden explores perceived reality versus the memories that she has.