Salt Crystalizes a Victorian Dress Submerged in the Dead Sea

Israeli artist Sigalit Landau soaked the dress in the salty sea for three months, to stunning results.

August 26, 2016, 3:20pm

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau

A long soak in the Dead Sea transformed an antique garment into a rigid, crystalline salt sculpture. 150 pounds of weight allowed photographer Yotam From to sink to the bottom of the highly salinated body of water and capture the dress on film. Now on display as a series of eight color prints at Marlborough Contemporary in London, Salt Bride is the result of Israeli artist Sigalit Landau's months-long synthesis of sculpture, photography, and natural processes.

It's easy to see why Landau is obsessed with mysterious body of water, one of the few in the world which is unable to support any life. The area hosts a string of resorts despite regularly reaching over 100° F in the summer, and is believed by some to cover the remnants of biblical cities Soddom and Gommorah. Landau's incorporated the Dead Sea into much of her work, not only crystalizing objects like a noose, shoes, and a violin, but recreating its harsh beauty in numerous exhibitions and museums, including Documenta X in 1997, MoMA New York in 2008, and a retrospective at Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) in 2014. One of her most iconic works is DeadSee, a video of herself floating naked amidst a string of 500 watermelons.

Amazing @sigalitlandau in preparation of new salt sculptures, working in the #DeadSea, July 2016 Photo: Shaxaf Haber Landau's exhibition "Salt Bride", featuring a series of 8 large colour prints, is on view throughout #Summer at @marlborough_contemporary. Photographed underwater, working in collaboration with #YotamFrom, the images document the transformation of a dress submerged in the salt-rich waters of the Dead Sea. #SigalitLandau #SaltBride #Salt #marlboroughcontemporary #photography #sea #summer #TheDybbuk @nowness

A photo posted by Francesco Dama Zini (@bild_er) on

Aug 2, 2016 at 2:35am PDT

Landau finds inspiration not just in the physicality of the Dead Sea, but in the culture surrounding it. Salt Bride, for example, not only takes on the properties of the sea salt, but is an exploration of the character Leah in Yiddish playwrite S. Ansky's The Dybbuk. “Over the years, I learnt more and more about this low and strange place," Landau says. "Still the magic is there waiting for us: new experiments, ideas and understandings. It is like meeting with a different time system, a different logic, another planet. It looks like snow, like sugar, like death’s embrace; solid tears, like a white surrender to fire and water combined.” Now Landau is working on a concept for a monumental bridge that would connect the Israeli and Jordanian sides of the Dead Sea.

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau

Sigalit Landau in collaboration with Yotam From, Salt Crystal Bride Gown III, 2014, Colour Print, 163 x 109 cm, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London. Photo: Studio Sigalit Landau