In Kaptzon’s video installation, Weltschmerz enters the stage in a scene that is a cross between a desktop interface and a makeshift puppet theatre. The video piece is far from nihilistic. As in previous works by the artist, with Weltschmerz he strives toward the core of humanity, trying to find meaning in a world that doesn’t make sense. Kaptzon proposes a cohesive interdisciplinary approach that combines a spiritual vision with a sober cultural view of the present. By weaving together mythology, history, and his expansive imagination, he creates an elegiac and whimsical story of mankind. He makes skillful use of an original visual lexicon that draws on popular culture, documentary material, and science, and distills a poetic language, filled with humor, that places existential questions at its center.

With a quirky sense of wit, Kaptzon gauges the existential weight of that which makes us human. This can be painfully felt in the mythological story told by a dissolving entity about the birth of consciousness with the first word ever spoken. At that moment, we became separated from the rest of the world, leaving us ashamed and lonely, trying to find meaning in a world that doesn’t make sense. And yet, the world’s morning routine repeats once again, same as it ever was.

Award Producer: Vered Gadish

Image: Haviv Kaptzon, The Electromagnetics, 2021, pencil and oil pastel on paper, 42×29.7 (photo: Flora Deborah, Daniel Hanoch)

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