{"id":26842,"date":"2013-07-01T03:59:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T10:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=26842"},"modified":"2013-07-03T14:41:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T21:41:18","slug":"bezalel-mfa-graduate-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=26842","title":{"rendered":"Bezalel MFA Graduate Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a friend who refuses to have anything at all to do with the Israeli art scene. Her argument is that it is inherently narcissistic: too steeped with the meta-issue of Israel\u2019s place in the international art arena to have anything genuinely interesting to say about local concerns. I take her point, but I don\u2019t entirely agree. What is creativity if not the expression of narcissism: the conviction that one has something important to say, and in a way that no-one else can manage, anyway? The real issue, I think, is how well the impulse is mediated, how far it allows for reflexive over reactive thinking.<\/p>\n

\"Porat<\/a>
Porat Salomon, Kfitsat Haderech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oddly enough, video is the dominant medium at Bezalel\u2019s annual MFA Graduate Show, running from today until 11th July. Maybe this shouldn\u2019t surprise. Anyone can play cameraman nowadays, thanks to advances in technology. There are quite a few installations based around found objects too. Some abstractions on canvas. Not much representational \u2013 in the traditional sense \u2013 artwork. The emphasis is, I think, very much on the personal experience. It\u2019s a part of what my friend refers to disparagingly as narcissism, but I think the personal embodies much potential. It\u2019s all a matter of self-awareness.<\/p>\n

The exhibition is presented very much along democratic principles, the upstairs gallery presenting each of the 18 graduating students in individual spaces, the cavernous network of rooms on the ground floor given over to a joint exhibit of sorts. I say \u201cof sorts\u201d because it feels more like an extension of the individual displays, the thrust of the over-arching narrative eluding me. There is, though, the commitment to use the space as they find it, which creates interesting juxtapositions of form and shape.<\/p>\n

\"Roy<\/a>
Roy Yariv, Curvature of Space<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Take Mirit Weinstock\u2019s untitled sound and video installation, for instance. I wonder what bearing her alternative existence \u2013 as a jeweller \u2013 might have had some bearing on her work. A looped recording is commentary from a 200m race featuring Usain Bolt, gradually speeding up until it becomes unintelligible. It\u2019s only after recovering from the disorientating rush of sound that one becomes aware of a window looking out onto two screens. We see a woman blowing, furiously, energetically, at a huge mound of coal. In moments of repose she seems surprisingly composed, not at all deterred by the Sisyphean task confronting her. Perhaps, she\u2019s hoping to speed up time, turn the coal into diamonds. I don\u2019t know. But it does have a beguiling effect.<\/p>\n

\"Mirit<\/a>
Mirit Weinstock, Untitled, video<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kookhee Lee is a Korean transplant to Israel, but 10 years still describes life in her adopted home as a \u201cfight\u201d. Incidentally, she has a video too, Yoman, that tries to encapsulate the experience of apartness: she\u2019s in her apartment, playing Mortal Combat on her game console. She wins some, but ultimately loses. It reminds me of the British statesman who once remarked wryly that all political careers end up in failure. Israel isn\u2019t quite so harsh to outsiders, but it does run close sometimes. She isn\u2019t quite as pessimistic about her place in the country as the video might suggest though, which I think is a good thing. Israel needs people who have the privilege of being on the inside without being a part of the inside, if you catch my drift.<\/p>\n

Her photographs piqued my interest more, perhaps because they are rather oblique but yet not disinterested. There\u2019s one, ostensibly of a horse. The creature is so effectively camouflaged in the foreground that the viewer\u2019s eyes are drawn to the background, and specifically to the Security Wall running across the landscape. It\u2019s odd, because the wall is a political juxtaposition, but it almost \u2013 almost \u2013 blends naturally with the landscape. Almost as if it wasn\u2019t intended to be seen.<\/p>\n

\"Tamar<\/a>
Tamar Hirschfeld, Schwartze welcoming Obama to Israel, 1_21min, 2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I often struggle with the phrase \u201cpolitical correctness\u201d in Hebrew. Not the words \u2013 although they\u2019re hard enough to translate \u2013 but the concept. It doesn\u2019t really exist in these parts. Tamar Hirschfeld\u2019s multimedia installation, Schwartze Unveiled, works round this paucity of vocabulary by simply ignoring it. Blackface has been an absolute no-no in the western world for some time. Hirschfeld embraces it with a gleeful abandon, blacking up and placing herself in a range of bewildering, sometimes deeply unsettling tableaux. She explains that she consciously embraced the provocative vulgarity of her creation (and you don\u2019t get much more provocative than playing a Chopin etude in blackface, then pausing to solemnly eat a banana) because it reflects the level of discourse about race and ethnicity in Israel today. Schwartze Unveiled looks outwards too: the underpinning conceit, I think, is the constant, sometimes limiting, negotiation of identity that Israeli Jews often find themselves caught up in both inside and outside the country (Schwartze, the derogatory Yiddish word for negroes, was similarly used to described the Jews of Germany once upon a time.) It\u2019s unsettling, will probably upset people, and completely subjective. In short, it\u2019s narcissistic. But in the best possible way. I\u2019m going to recommend the show to my friend. I hope she has enough patience to grasp the underlying intent.<\/p>\n

The MFA Graduate Show of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design runs at Salame 60, Tel Aviv from 1-11 July 2013.<\/p>\n

Participating artists: Diana Ashurov, Mirna Bamieh, Adi Brande, Hili Greenfield, Kookhee Lee, Tamar Hirschfeld, Mirit Weinstock, Mark Yashaev, Shavit Yaron, Roy Yariv, Eran Nave, Porat Salomon, Hila Karbeknikov-Pax, Elad Roasen, Pearl Schneider, Amir Sheft, Avinoam Sternheim, David Schocken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a friend who refuses to have anything at all to do with the Israeli art scene. Her argument is that it is inherently narcissistic: too steeped with the meta-issue of Israel\u2019s place in the international art arena to have anything genuinely interesting to say about local concerns. I take her point, but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}