A catalogue essay for the exhibition Fatamorgana: Illusion and Deception in Contemporary Art

Haifa Museum of Art

November 2006 – May 2007 

Catalogue (designed by Noam Fridman): 184 pages, English/Hebrew, 25 artist texts, additional essay by Raz Chen-Morris (“Entrapping the Eye and Creating Knowledge in Early modern Europe”), color plates 

A Fata Morgana is a well known optical phenomenon that produces illusory mirages. It was named after a sorceress whom, according to legend, lived at the bottom of the Strait of Messina and deluded the seafarers passing through it. The deceptive nature of this phenomenon and the magical aura that surrounds it embodied the spirit of this exhibition. The range of artworks assembled under this heading are ones that awaken a sense of wonder – that feeling of enchantment that arises when something is revealed as different than what it appeared to be.