Poland at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice La Biennale di Venezia
Yael Bartana
... and Europe will be stunned
OPENING OF THE POLISH PAVILION
2 June 2011, 4.30 p.m
COMMISSIONER OF THE POLISH PAVILION
Hanna Wróblewska
CURATORS
Sebastian Cichocki, Galit Eilat
ARTIST
Yael Bartana
COMMISSIONER ASSISTANT
Joanna Waśko
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Oren Sagiv
ALL PUBLICATIONS DESIGNED BY
Guy Saggee & Avihai Mizrahi
(studio Shual)
ORGANISER
Zachęta National Gallery of Art Warsaw
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Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland
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The 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice
ILLUMInations
PRESS RELEASE
The exhibition … and Europe will be stunned will be the official Polish participation
at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice in 2011. This video installation
by the Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana will be the first time a non-Polish national
has represented Poland in the history of the Venice Biennale. Bartana's three films
Mary Koszmary (2007), Mur i wieża (2009) and Zamach (2011) revolve around the
activities of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), a political group
that calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers. The
films traverse a landscape scarred by the histories of competing nationalisms and
militarisms, overflowing with the narratives of the Israeli settlement movement, Zionist dreams, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and the Palestinian right of return
Apart from realising the film trilogy, a new political movement has been established
by the artist.
Mary Koszmary (Nightmare) is the first film in the trilogy and explores a complicated
set of social and political relationships among Jews, Poles and other Europeans in
the age of globalisation. A young activist, played here by Sławomir Sierakowski
founder and chief editor of Krytyka Polityczna magazine), delivers a speech in the)
abandoned National Stadium in Warsaw. He urges three million Jews to come back
to Poland. Using the structure and sensibility of a World War II propaganda film
Mary Koszmary addresses contemporary anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Poland
the longing for the Jewish past among liberal Polish intellectuals and the Zionist
dream of return to Israel. As Yael Bartana says: ‘This is a very universal story
as in previous works, I have treated Israel as a sort of a social laboratory, always
looking at it from the outside. These are mechanisms and situations which can be
observed anywhere in the world. My recent works are not just stories about two
nations — Poles and Jews. This is a universal presentation of the impossibility of
‘.living together
The second film in the trilogy Mur i wieża (Wall and Tower) was made in the
Warsaw district of Muranów, where a new kibbutz was erected at actual scale and
in the architectural style of the 1930's. This kibbutz, constructed in the centre
of Warsaw, was an utterly ‘exotic' structure, even despite its perverse reflection of the history of the location, which had been the Jewish residential area before the
war, and then a part of Warsaw Ghetto. The film invokes previous heroic images of
strong and beautiful men and women who mythically established Israel. They were
depicted as determined pioneers who, despite the most unfavorable conditions
kept building houses, cultivating land, studying, bringing up children collectively
sharing their assets and constantly training to fight off potential enemy attacks
This is the world that the artist proposes to resurrect in the 21st century, in an
Exhibition entirely different political and geographical configuration. Bartana again: ‘I quote the past, the time of Socialist utopia, youthfulness and optimism — when there
‘.was a project of constructing a modernist idea of a new world.
In the new film Zamach (Assassination), the final part of the trilogy, which has its
premiere at the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice and will be shown in
parallel at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw — Bartana brings the
dream about multinational community and the brand new Polish society to the
ultimate test. The plot of the film takes place in not too distant a future, during
the funeral ceremony of the leader of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland
who had been killed by an unidentified assassin. It is by means of this symbolic
death that the myth of the new political movement is unified — a movement which
can become a concrete project to be implemented in Poland, Europe, or the Middle
East in the days to come.
The project by Yael Bartana (which consists of the films and foundations of a
political movement) is an experimental form of collective psychotherapy through
which national demons are stirred and dragged into consciousness. Apart from the
complex Polish-Jewish relationship, this is a story about our readiness to accept the
other and of the complexities of cultural integration in an unstable world where
geography and politics are subject to radical shifts. Bartana tests reactions to the
unexpected return of the ‘long unseen neighbour' and recalls the forgotten motif of alternative locations for the state of Israel that were once considered by Zionists
such as Uganda.
Exhibited Work
Yael Bartana, Mary Koszmary (Nightmares), 2007, Super 16 mm transfered to BluRay, Courtesy of Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, and Foksal Gallery Foundation Warsaw
Yael Bartana, Mur i wieża (Wall and Tower), 2009, RED transfered to HD, Courtesy
of Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, and Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
Yael Bartana, Zamach (Assassination), 2011, RED transfered to HD, Courtesy of
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam, and Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv
Publication
The publication A Cookbook for Political Imagination (2011) accompanies the
exhibition … and Europe will be stunned for the Polish Pavilion at the 54th Biennale
of Art in Venice. This is not a traditional exhibition catalogue but rather a manual of
.political instructions and recipes, delivered by more than 40 international authors
Covering a broad spectrum of themes, the cookbook comprises manifestos, artistic
contributions, fictional stories to elements of visual identity, food recipes, social
advice and guidance for members of the movement. It is the first book published
under the auspices of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland, and has been
edited by the curators of the exhibition, Sebastian Cichocki and Galit Eilat, and
designed by Guy Saggee from Shual Studio (Tel Aviv). A Cookbook for Political
Imagination includes contributions by Gish Amit, Yazid Anani, Ariella Azoulay
Marek Beylin, Achim Borchardt-Hume, Andrea Geyer, Anka Grupińska, Mika
Hannula, Daniel Hendrickson, Rafał Jakubowicz, Wam Kat, Yuval Kremnitzer
& Renzo Martens, Oliver Ressler, Sarah Rifky, Lia Perjovschi, Stefanie Peter
Phillipp Goll, Avi Pitchon, Chantal Pontbriand, Ila Ben Porat, Steven ten Thije
James Trainor, WHW and others.
Biograms
Artist
Yael Bartana was born in 1970 in Afula, Israel. Her artistic practice includes film
photography, video and sound installation. She has had numerous solo exhibitions
e.g. at PS1, New York; Moderna Museet, Malmö; Center for Contemporary Art
Tel Aviv; Kunstverein, Hamburg; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, or Fredericianum
Kassel. She has also participated in such prestigious group shows as Manifesta 4
(Frankfurt (2002); 27th Săo Paulo Biennial (2006) or documenta 12 in Kassel (2007
In her Israeli projects, Bartana dealt with the impact of war, military rituals and
a sense of threat on everyday life. Since 2008, the artist has also been working in
Poland, creating projects on the history of Polish-Jewish relations and its influence
on the contemporary Polish identity. Yael Bartana is a winner of numerous prizes
and awards, e.g. Artes Mundi 4 (Wales, 2010), Anselm Kiefer Prize (2003), Prix
(Dazibao (Montreal, 2009), Prix de Rome (Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, 2005
Dorothea von Stetten Kunstpreis (Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2005) or the Nathan
(Gottesdiener Foundation Israeli Art Prize (2007).
Curators
Sebastian Cichocki works as the chief curator at the Museum of Modern Art in
Warsaw. Between 2005–2008, he worked as director of the Centre for Contemporary
Art Kronika in Bytom, Poland. In his curatorial and publishing projects, he often
refers to the land art and conceptual traditions. Selected curated and co-curated
exhibitions: Early Years, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2010); Daniel
Knorr. Awake Asleep, Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw (2008); Monika
Sosnowska. 1:1, Polish Pavilion at the 52nd International Art Exhibition, Venice
2007); Yane Calovski and Hristina Ivanoska. Oskar Hansen's Museum of Modern)
Art, CCA Kronika, Bytom (2007); Bródno Sculpture Park, Park Bródnowski, Warsaw
2009–2011); Warsaw in Construction, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, public)
space, Warsaw (2009, 2010). Author of critical texts and art-related literary fictions
Chief editor of the humanities quarterly Format P. He has published in periodicals
such as Artforum, Cabinet, Mousse, Krytyka Polityczna, FUKT, Muzeum, Czas
.Kultury, IDEA arts+society, Camera Austria.
Galit Eilat is a writer, curator and the founding director of The Israeli Center for
Digital Art in Holon. She is co-editor in chief of Maarav — an online arts and culture
magazine, as well as research curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Her
projects tackle issues such as the political situation in the Middle East, activism or
political imagination in art
Selected curated and co-curated exhibitions: Politics of Collection, Collection of
Politics, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2010); The Real War, solo show with Sean
Snyder, The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon (2010); Evil to the Core, The Israeli
Center for Digital Art, Holon (2009–2010); Never Looked Better, Beth Hatefutsoth
Tel Aviv (2008–2009); Chosen, a joint collaboration between Wyspa Institute of Art
Gdańsk and The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon (2008–2009); Mobile Archive
in collaboration with Hamburg Kunstverein; Liminal Spaces, traveling seminar
Israel and Palestine (2006–2008); People, Land, State, The Israeli Center for Digital
(Art, Holon (2006); This is Not America, Art Project Gallery, Tel Aviv (2006Yael Bartana
Photo: Daniel MeirPRESS ACCREDITATION
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PRESS CONTACT FOR THE POLISH PAVILION
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Joanna Waśko
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