Large infant eats tears. Sigalit Landau stays weird.

Nothing gets me going like an art piece where the list of art mediums begins with “cement” and ends with “water.” Sigalit Landau’s Cry Boy, Cry does not disappoint. I’m not sure if there’s any need to complicate the meaning of this sculptural installment-- a child drinks the sea water that gushes from his eyes as he sits perched on a watermelon. Let’s call that watermelon a womb and say that his mindful recycling of his own tears is a cyclical representation of life and death. Or something.

I took a peek at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s website and it wasn’t nearly as straightforward: “In a certain sense one can read the motif of recycling water in the sculpture of the weeping child as a Sisyphean activity and as a constant facing up to with the thing that cannot be marked, with an unattainable yearning.” BRB, currently googling Sisyphean. And maybe motif. Also-- what thing cannot be marked? Why the heck are we yearning for it? Art jargon gives me indigestion.

Sigalit Landau would probably (definitely) approve of Tel Aviv’s description. In fact, she probably wrote it. She’s well known for her out-there video art works, including one in which she hula hoops with a hoop made from barbed wire in the nude. BARBED WIRE. Naked. That’s some pretty heavy commitment to the message, which we can definitely respect. You do you, Sigalit. And most importantly, Cry Boy, Cry manages to satisfy my fascination with cement and bronze and other hefty let’s-get-straight-to-the-point kind of materials. No small task for a sculptor… it’s nothing short of a Sisyphean enterprise (thanks, Google).