Israeli artist Yael Bartana

http://ps1.org/exhibitions/view/203/

Exhibitions

Now on view

Yael Bartana

On view October 19, 2008 – January 19, 2009

 

Yael Bartana
Kings of the Hill (2003)
7 min 30 sec, mini DV & DVD, PAL, color, sound

Courtesy of Annet Gelink Gallery Amsterdam, Sommer Contemporary Art Tel-Aviv, and the artist

Yael Bartana
Summer Camp 
2007
Video- und Toninstallation, 12 Min
Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam and Sommer Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
Photo: Matthew Septimus. Courtesy P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

Yael Bartana
Wild Seeds 
2005
6 min 40 sec, mini DV & DVD, PAL, color, sound
Two channel video and sound installation (projection 1: Image, projection 2: subtitles)
Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam and Sommer Contemporary Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
Photo: Matthew Septimus. Courtesy P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center presents the work of Yael Bartana, whose work investigates society and politics. Over the last several years, she has become known for her complex visualizations in the forms of photography, film, video, and sound works and installations. Whereas largely known in Europe, her work has not been as present in the U.S. until now. On view in the First Floor Drawing and Painting Galleries from October 19, 2008 until January 26, 2009, this is Bartana’s first solo exhibition at a New York institution.

The exhibition is comprised of five works, including Trembling Time (2001), Kings of the Hill (2003), Low Relief II (2004), Wild Seeds(2005), and Summer Camp (2007), which provide an introduction to the past seven years of Bartana’s artistic practice. Her work creates a revealing ambivalence between playfulness and serious topics, time looped and halted, material from documentation and re-enactments.

Yael Bartana (b. 1970, Afula, Israel) lives and works in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv. She has had numerous solo exhibitions including: Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Poland (2008); Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2008); The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada (2007); Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany (2006); Museum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2005); Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2004); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA (2004).

She has also been included in may group exhibitions including: Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, United Kingdom (2008); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y Leon, Spain (2008); Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany (2007); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA (2007); Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2007); 27^th Bienal de São Paulo, Brasil (2007); Tàpies Foundation, Barcelona, Spain (2006); 9^th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey (2005).

 

 

Organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media, The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Chief Curatorial Advisor.

The exhibition is made possible by David Teiger and The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art. 

Additional funding is provided by Artis – Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, The Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York, and Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel.

The accompanying publication is made possible by Artis – Contemporary Israeli Art Fund

http://www.my-i.com/

Israeli artists Sigalit Landau

Projects 87: Sigalit Landau
March 19–July 28, 2008 AT MOMA

 

Cycle Spun (2007) comprises three discrete video loops by Sigalit Landau (b. 1969). Functioning together as a trilogy and a triptych of moving images, the videos each depict a performative act of spinning, or circular motion, against a landscape backdrop in Landau’s native Israel.

In the wall-sized projection DeadSee (2005), a cord connects five hundred watermelons, creating a six-meter, spiral-shaped raft on the salt-saturated waters of the Dead Sea. Secured within this sculptural configuration, the artist floats with an arm outstretched toward a collection of “wounded” fruits, their intensely red flesh revealed. The nautilus form gradually unfurls, leaving the surface of the water a nearly monochromatic azure and the artist’s body exposed.

Centrifugal force moves a ring of barbed wire in seemingly endless revolutions around Landau’s bare torso in Barbed Hula(2000). In each cycle, the barbs graze the flesh, compromising the integrity of the body. Enacted at sunrise on the Mediterranean coast, her methodical body movements resonate with the rhythm of the waves in a nearly ritualistic repetition.

Day Done (2007) reinterprets an ancient Jewish custom in which an isolated area of a newly built house is intentionally left unpainted or unfinished to symbolize the remembrance of destruction. The video documents an inverse gesture—the painting of a circle around a window from inside the house, marking it first with a black stain and then, as night falls, tracing over it in white.

In addition to the self-illuminated images of Cycle Spun, the gallery is lit by Barbed Salt Lamps (2007), a cluster of barbed-wire objects that hovers like a cloud of chandeliers overhead. These handcrafted relics have been repeatedly submerged in the Dead Sea and dried in the desert sun, resulting in a multilayered, crystalline glaze through which they permeate the space with a frosted glow.

The exhibition is organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media.

The Elaine Dannheisser Projects Series is made possible in part by The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art and the JA Endowment Committee. 

Additional funding for this exhibition is provided by artist.