Bodybook @ Huis van het boek Den Haag

Artist Efrat Zehavi created new sculptures for the exhibition ‘All the Knowledge of the World’. Among the museum’s Egyptian and Greco-Roman antiquities, you can discover her ‘Bodybook’, works where memories, knowledge, and generations come together.

Inspired by female figures and archetypes from art history and by the life story of her grandmother Rachel (born in The Hague, who fled in 1942 and lost her parents in Auschwitz), Zehavi weaves personal memories together with universal stories of women throughout history.

In her series ‘Bodybook – Heterogeneous Self-Portrait’, she sees the body as a book, passing on the knowledge, experiences, and memories of generations.

Kunstenaar Efrat Zehavi maakte nieuwe sculpturen voor de tentoonstelling ‘Al het weten van de wereld’. Tussen de Egyptische en Grieks-Romeinse oudheden van het museum ontdek je haar ‘Bodybook’, werken waarin herinneringen, kennis en generaties samenkomen.

Geïnspireerd door vrouwenfiguren en archetypen uit de kunstgeschiedenis én door het levensverhaal van haar oma Rachel (geboren in Den Haag, die in 1942 moest vluchten en haar ouders verloor in Auschwitz), verweeft Zehavi persoonlijke herinneringen met universele verhalen van vrouwen door de geschiedenis heen. In haar serie ‘Bodybook – Heterogeneous Self-Portrait’ ziet zij het lichaam als een boek, waarin kennis, ervaringen en herinneringen van generaties worden doorgegeven.

Photos: Aad Hoogendoorn

In this work, Efrat Zehavi interweaves the figures of the Christian Mary and the Egyptian Isis with her own personal experiences. A year before Zehavi’s birth, her newborn sister died. ‘When I asked my mother about my late sister, she said, ’I hardly knew that baby, you were always the most important thing to me. She was just a shadow.’’ With this image, Zehavi shapes the relationship between herself, her mother and the sister she never knew.    Efrat Zehavi, Bodybook, 2025  Keramiek