Closer Than This
Abraham Aronovitch, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 100 × 81 cm, Behind the Obvious series.
When proximity does not abolish distance: the mirror as a site of presence without contact, where the other remains out of reach.
Reading note
With Closer Than This, Abraham Aronovitch continues, within the Behind the Obvious series, his investigation of the gaze as a site of projection for love and its limits. The work questions proximity not as a relational given, but as an experience in which the presence of the other remains fundamentally uncertain. The composition stages a couple in extreme closeness, revealing a tension between apparent intimacy and the impossibility of true fusion.
The title designates a silent limit: that of a maximal approach beyond which nothing can truly be grasped. Within this dispositif, the mirror functions as a mirage, holding the image of the loved one in a state of presence accessible to the gaze yet devoid of contact. What unfolds in this painting is less about absence than about the difficulty of transforming desire into an effective encounter, reminding us that even at the closest distance, otherness retains a degree of inaccessibility.
The whole room: The Presence
Room 3 · The Presence, The Rampart Identity : 8 paintings, in hanging order.
