Dear Shaded Viewers,
There is a precise moment when an artist stops searching and begins to find. For Ahuva Zeloof, a British sculptor of Middle Eastern heritage, that moment came on a beach in the Holy Land. Walking among people collecting shells, her gaze fell upon some Nubian stones smoothed by the sea. She carried them back to her studio, keeping them for years without particular reason. Then one day, those organic forms began to speak to her: the Wailing Wall, biblical figures, pilgrimage scenes, Moses and Mount Sinai. All there, already contained within the stone. From that revelation came FAITH, Zeloof’s monographic book published by Silvana Editoriale, an editorial object that is itself a work of art, documenting a radically new chapter in the practice of an artist, who has earned international recognition exhibiting alongside names such as Tracey Emin and David Hockney. FAITH marks a true turning point in Zeloof’s journey: where her previous sculptures dialogued between smooth surfaces and raw matter, here she relinquishes almost all physical manipulation. No chiselling, no correction. Only composition, arrangement, and attentiveness to the material. The stones are not transformed — they are recognised. As Zeloof herself writes: “Created by nature and found by the artist.”
AN HOMAGE TO SHELLY VERTHIME, AN EXTRAORDINARY CURATOR
The book also bears the deep mark of a presence that is no longer with us. FAITH was edited by Shelly Verthime, an absolute point of reference in the world of international photographic art. For decades the curator of Guy Bourdin’s estate — the fashion photographer whose surreal and unsettling images rewrote the language of visual advertising — Verthime built an extraordinary career making the complexity of modern art accessible to the wider public. She edited a series of seminal volumes that reestablished the French photographer’s place in the history of twentieth-century art, helping to restore to Bourdin the critical standing he deserved. FAITH was her final project, completed and seen shortly before her passing. Verthime had from the very beginning encouraged the artist along this path, seeing the first stones collected, through to conceiving the editorial framework of the book, guiding its visual and narrative construction, working on it until the end with the same dedication she had always brought to the great archives of photographic history.
A DOUBLE EVENT IN MILAN
On 3 June at 6.00 pm, Fondazione Sozzani (Via Bovisasca 87) hosts the official book launch with a conversation exploring how fashion, sculpture and photography converge in the making of a printed art object. Ahuva Zeloof will be joined by art director Avshalom Gur and photographer Galia Verthime Sherf, daughter of Shelly, in a talk moderated by Francesca Marani, Senior Photo Editor of Vogue Italia. The evening will also be an occasion to honour Shelly Verthime’s memory.
From 4 to 14 June, Galleria Rubin (Via Santa Marta 10) presents the exhibition FAITH — the first time these sculptures are shown in Milan. For the first time in Milan, the sculptures presented in the volume are shown in their three-dimensionality, offering visitors the tactile and sensory experience that only physical presence can provide. The exhibition path, curated by Avshalom Gur, places the sculptures in dialogue with the book’s photographic reportage, building an itinerary that moves between two forms of representation of the same material. On one side, the stone in its concrete presence, with all the weight and materiality of Nubian rock; on the other, the photographic image that transforms it into vision, almost into icon. A confrontation that amplifies the meaning of the entire project: faith, Zeloof reminds us, manifests itself precisely in that subtle space between what we see and what we recognise.
Federico Poletti
Ahuva Zeloof. FAITH
Book launch — 3 June, 6.00 pm, Fondazione Sozzani, Via Bovisasca 87, Milan
Exhibition — Galleria Rubin, Via Santa Marta 10, Milan, 4–14 June 2025
