Kafka's "The Vulture": from Papercuts to Live Performance

Sep 12

2 min read

Updated: Sep 17

MY KAFKA CUTOUTS IN EXHIBITION:

The National Library of Israel in Jerusalem held a year-long exhibition in 2024 marking the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death, featuring works by numerous artists. I was the only artist invited to create a new work specifically for the exhibition. I created 33 papercut images for Kafka’s The Vulture (Der Geier), presented as a four-minute video that tells the story through images and bilingual captions.

You can watch the video here:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/9e2afd_bd79f11d14ba48b7bd05b77e0d14444d/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

L’khol HaRuchot, the literary journal of the Department of Literature at Tel Aviv University interviewed me about my work on The Vulture which can read in English here; in Hebrew here

HaMekarer (The Fridge) Art Gallery in Tel Aviv, invited me to exhibit my papercuts in a six-week solo exhibition during June–July 2026. I included the papercuts inspired by Kafka's letters to his father and Milena, as well as a selection from The Vulture series exhibited in the National Library.

THE TECHNIQUE

VIDEO: Watch a three-minute demonstration of my papercutting technique below:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/9e2afd_da8c7bc5aa804ec9a404286490b40922/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

THE PERFORMANCE

Once the National Library exhibition came down, I decided to tell the story live and developed The Vulture (העיט) as a 20-minute highly gestural storytelling performance with the 33 papercuts. Placed next to each other and illuminated from the back, they are replaced as the story unfolds. The work thus combines elements of dramatized oral narration, acted out comic strips and shadow theater figures.

Concept, Artwork, Dramaturgy and Performance: Patricia O’Donovan.

Text: Primarily Kafka’s own, in a Hebrew translation by Goni Tsur, based on Tania and James Stern's English translation.

Language: Hebrew, English or Spanish.