> *“We can ‘read’ the studio as a text—one that is as revealing, in its own way, as the work of art itself.”*  

> — Brian O’Doherty, *Studio and Cube: On the Relationship Between Where Art is Made and Where Art is Displayed*

The work of art presents itself inside the gallery—its hall of fame. The walls are white and high, silence is reverently preserved, and dignified visitors wander among the aesthetic treasures.  

But art is born in an entirely different place. Its womb is the mind and soul of the artist—his or her room, bed, city, surroundings, and most centrally: the studio.

The exhibition *Sagsoget* proposes a reversed gaze—one that focuses not on the final work, but on the **process**, and more specifically, on the **place** in which that process occurs.  

We are invited to view the artwork as both a complete object with its own aesthetic authority and simultaneously as something that began somewhere—at a certain time and place—and continues to evolve into the present.

The selected works reveal the moment of inception and the unfolding process. They allow us to look into the space in which they were made: the **studio**. A studio contains impressions and experiences, hesitations and decisions, success and failure. It must be welcoming and comfortable, while also functioning as the artist’s workplace.

In **Shira Gefenstein’s** *Untitled*, she lays out a map—a spatial and chronological dissection of her creative process within her workspace. Layers of networks chart and explain how the studio is structured, what happens where. The work becomes a form of self-tracking that ultimately results in a piece of art about the act of its own creation.

In **Elinor Carucci’s** photograph *My Mother and I*, we are exposed to a charged moment. The term “studio” here gains another layer of meaning—not just a location, but also a photographic genre: studio photography—controlled, arranged, and carefully composed by the photographer. But suddenly, a revealing moment slips in: an awkward laugh, unplanned, exposing the tension between the orchestrated and the accidental, between desire and reality, between what’s allowed and what vanishes in that very moment.

**Rani Pardes**, in *Untitled*, presents a painting—yet upon a second look, a volume is revealed. There is canvas, there is paint, there is image. But the painting disguises itself as something else—or perhaps it’s the “something else” that’s dressed as a painting. The image becomes a veil, a surface that hides something we cannot see—only guess. Pardes’ work exposes its own production: hovering between a painting (stains of color on stretched canvas) and a wrapped sculptural object. The wooden frame—hand-built by the artist in the studio—is meant to support the painting, but here, the frame is also the star. The process becomes the product.

In **Su Yu-Hsien’s** video *The Chair*, we follow the transformation of a simple chair into a one-of-a-kind object traveling across the country. One video channel documents the creation of the chair—from humble origins to care and repair, to its final exposure beyond the studio doors. The work is laced with self-deprecating humor regarding the sanctity of the artistic process.

**Shay Azoulay**, in his piece *Lonely Island*, shows a man stranded on an island, held in the hand of a faceless giant whose body is mostly absent. Who is the artist here? The giant holding the island? Or the man suspended between heaven and earth? Azoulay often grapples with the experience of the artist in the studio, and with the painter’s place within the broad scope of “art history.” Is the studio a deserted island? Perhaps the painter, unwillingly, lives upon it. Azoulay tells a story—perhaps a dream, or perhaps his own daily dilemma as a painter.

**Chaimi Fenichel’s** *The Terror of Emptiness* depicts a wall in the artist’s studio. Fenichel, who usually sculpts with aerated concrete (Ytong), shows us a wall overflowing with tools—folders, notebooks, post-it notes, work surfaces, boxes. The title, *The Terror of Emptiness*, describes a familiar condition in an artist’s life. But here, the emptiness is paradoxically crammed with objects and tools. And still, the emptiness—the fear of the void—lingers in the studio air.

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