Threadsun

“Threadsun” is one of many words invented by Celan in German. The writer insisted on writing in German, although he spoke multiple languages and lost his family in the holocaust. This personal biography and the unexpected decision to continue expressing oneself in a language associated with hate and death are crucial as we navigate the meanings, nuances, connotations, and interpretations of the term. Yanai, much like Celan, invites us to wonder how can one paint, when faced with the current atrocities, how can one write as profoundly and beautifully after living with such loss?  

It is this impossible paradox, this irreconcilable state, that Yanai is so interested in, reconfiguring it according to the current difficult situation in which he – and we – operate. 

The exhibited new body of work continues Yanai’s trajectory over the past few years, referring to recurring sources such as the films of Eric Rohmer (of which Gene Hackman said, “I watched a Rohmer film, it was like watching paint dry”), the writing of Marcel Proust and Michel Houellebecq, and the oeuvre of artist Cy Twombly. The works span a wide range of subject matters: the mundane, even dull, and traditional themes of Western painting; landscapes; flowers; portraiture; interiors. Nothing here is attempting to be “groundbreaking” or “controversial”, which might, in turn, make the exhibition just that. 

These paintings remind us of what we are fighting for and living for. Small, mundane moments of beauty and poetry. Even now, among the horrors that have surrounded us since October 7 and before. 

Threadsuns 

above the greyblack wastes 

A tree- 

high thought 

grasps the light tone: there are 

still songs to sing beyond 

mankind. 

– Paul Celan 

Translated to English by Pierre Joris

Photography: Elad Sarig