Hyhyh (Could it Be) (2003)

This work has been presented many times in several versions at majpr venues around the world including Centre Pompidou in Paris, Kunsthalle Munchen, Tel Aviv Museum, art fairs around the world and in the city of Wrodaw in Poland.

The object relates to the Jewish motifs in Petel's work. A beaded curtain (approximately 10,000 beads), raising the Hebrew word HAYAYA, which appears twice in the scriptures (Books of Kings B, Chapter 7, Verse 2 and Verse 19), which refers to something that may occur in the future or bewilderment in light of something that has happened in the past. The word HAYA YA can be read in several ways, from start to end, in sections and with various punctuations, arousing a variety of meanings from glorification to mockery. But above all the Hebrew reader would find it difficult to read, and to a person familiar but not experienced with Hebrew, it would seem like the appearance of the Tetragrammaton. The word appears out of the ornamental arrangement of beads, and the object itself functions as a decorative divider (or Parochet - ornamental curtain covering the front of the Holy Ark in the synagogue). The work raises the question of being in the presence (of beauty), the possibility of transition (from sacred to secular, from faithful to doubtful) and the possibility of the Religious arising from the incomprehensible.