Staring Back at the Sun: Video Art from Israel, 1970-2012 is a two-night video exhibition that traces the development of
contemporary video practice in Israel and highlights work by artists who take
an incisive, critical perspective toward the cultural and political landscape
in Israel and beyond. Staring Back at the Sunshowcases 35 works
by 38 artists, including early performances, films and videos never before
presented outside of Israel. Divided into four historic and thematic sections, Staring
Back at the Sun focuses on the activist impulse in video
art-making in Israel over the last four decades.
Join us on
Wednesday, March 21, at 6:00 pm, for the first night of the exhibition, curated
by Ilana Tenenbaum, featuring 14 works under the heading Part
1: 1970–80—Early Experiments in Time-Based Art and 7 works
under the heading Part 2: 1980–97—An Art Form Coming Into
Its Own.
The second night, Thursday, March 22, features Part
3: 1997–2005—The Rise of the Medium, 6 works curated by Sergio
Edelsztein, and Part 4: 2005–12—State of Amnesia: Recent Video from Israel,
8 works curated by Yael Bartana and Avi Feldman. Informed by the international
history of video art, the program traces the development of the medium in
Israel and explores how artists have employed technology and material to
examine the sociopolitical status quo.
Avi Feldman,
co-curator of Part 4: State of Amnesia—2005-2012, will
introduce both nights of the exhibition and offer a Q&A following the
screenings. Feldman is an independent curator and writer based in Tel Aviv,
Berlin, and Dresden. He is a recipient of the 2018 Goethe-Institut New York’s
curatorial residency within its MINI/Goethe-Institut Ludlow 38 program.
The work by
the following artists will be shown over the two nights: Boaz Arad, Yossi Atia
& Itamar Rose, Yael Bartana, Irit Batsry, Guy Ben Ner, Hila Lulu Lin Farah
Kufr Birim, Michael Druks, Benni Efrat, Avraham Eilat, Nir Evron, Yair Garbuz,
Gideon Gechtman, Moshe Gershuni, Tamar Getter, Dor Guez, Sigalit Landau, Raffi
Lavie, Motti Mizrachi, Avi Mograbi, Michal Naaman, Joshua Neustein, Miri
Nishri, Dov Or-Ner, Nira Pereg, Gilad Ratman, Roee Rosen, Buky Schwartz, Ruti
Sela & Maayan Amir, Henry Shelesnyak, Ran Slavin, Doron Solomons, Micha
Ullman, Rona Yefman, Dan Zakhem, Nana & Boaz Zonshine.
This event is
organized in conjunction with the Tang's presentation of This Place as well as the Tang’s
series Whole Grain: Experiments in Film & Video, and is free and open to
the public. Staring Back at the Sun is produced and
circulated by Artis.