mediating sand and sea-thesis
TRANSCRIPT
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MEDIATING SAND AND SEA:
VIDEO LANDSCAPES BY ISRAELI WOMEN ARTISTS
by
Daniella Edith Gold
____________________________________________
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSKI SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAIn Partial Fulfillment of theRequirements for the Degree
MASTER OF PUBLIC ART STUDIES
May 2010
Daniella GoldCopyright 2010
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EPIGRAPH
Who sees? Who is capable of seeing, what, and from where? Who is authorized to
look? How is this authorization given or acquired? In whose name does one look?
What is the structure of the field of vision?Ariella Azoulay,Deaths Showcase, 4.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In writing this thesis, I have been incredibly fortunate to receive the support of several
people. My advisor Karen Mosss positive attitude, vast knowledge and endless amount
of patience made this experience truly great. The other members of my committee,
Rhoda Rosen and Joshua Decter, have been extremely helpful and supportive since the
outset. Rhoda Rosens expertise on visual mapping was instrumental in helping me to
think more critically about the disparity between maps and lived experience. I would
particularly like to thank Dean Ruth Weisberg for all of her guidance throughout the
last two years. Dorit Cypiss patience and generosity truly made this experience all the
better. I would like to thank all of the MPAS faculty and my fellow students for their
support from beginning to end. My research would not have been possible without the
generous support of the Kathleen Neely-Macomber Family. I am also greatly indebted
to Carol Spinner for her deep investment and support throughout my education. A big
thank you goes to my interviewees in Israel who shared their experiences as artists,
curators and cultural practitioners. Their devotion to the Israeli art scene speaks to the
importance of the arts in Israel. To Jonathan Zimmerman, whose support and love kept
me motivated throughout this process. Finally, I am extremely grateful to my family for
all of the unconditional support, love and laughs you provide me with.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Epigraph ii
Acknowledgments iii
List of Figures v
Abstract vii
Preface viii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: Space, Place and Territory 17
Chapter 2: Contested Space: The Beach 25
Chapter 3: Critical Perspectives: The Sea 39
Conclusion 51
Bibliography 57
Appendix A: Timeline 61
Appendix B: Figures 63
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Photograph from Hike on Israel Trail 63
Figure 2: Photograph of Tel Aviv Beach 63
Figure 3: Soldiers on Tel Aviv Beach 64
Figure 4: Still fromBarbed Hula 64
Figure 5: Still fromBarbed Hula 65
Figure 6: Still fromLifeguards 65
Figure 7: Still from Walk to the Sea 66
Figure 8: Still from Walk to the Sea 66
Figure 9: Still from Walk to the Sea 67
Figure 10: Still from Walk to the Sea 67
Figure 11: Photograph of Dead Sea 68
Figure 12: Photography of Dead Sea From Above 68
Figure 13: Still from Submersions 69
Figure 14: Still from Submersions 69
Figure 15: Still from Submersions 70
Figure 16: Still fromA Declaration 70
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Figure 17: Still fromA Declaration 71
Figure 18: Still fromA Declaration 71
Figure 19: Still fromDeadSee
72
Figure 20: Still fromDeadSee 72
Figure 21: Still fromDeadSee 73
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ABSTRACT
Starting in the mid-1980s and progressing into the first decade of the 2000s, Israeli
artists have utilized moments of relative quietness to critically examine their personal
relation to the hegemonic Israeli narrative. Artists such as Yael Bartana, Smadar
Dreyfus, Lezli Rubin Kunda, Sigalit Landau and Dana Levy reimagine marginalized
spaces in order to question Israeli history, politics and culture. Their media-based
work reflects, projects and constructs a modern Israeli identity. These works
conceptualize the development of a new narrative that encourages hybridity,
individual experience and openness. This thesis focuses on works that are staged in
complex Israeli public spaces, specifically the shore and the sea. By locating their
work in contested spaces, these artists interpret the relationship between Israeli
identity formation, gender politics, spatial theory and political geography. These
artists are not only creating internationally recognized works of art, but are also
promoting agency within Israel through cultural production.
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PREFACE
On a hot summer day in 2009, I found myself hiking part of the Israel Trail
with members of my Israeli family (Figure 1). The panoramic view in front of me
included gravel roads, a lush, out of place grove sponsored by the Jewish National
Fund and hilltop Arab homes. This particular hike was void of any particular
historical significance, yet rich in symbolism. For a short period of time, I was
amongst the nature of Israel. My cousins, who are hiking the whole 600-mile trail,
view the completion of the trail as a form of patriotism. Although the Israel National
Trail was designed to provide Israelis with a peaceful retreat, it actually represents a
territorial claim over the land of Israel. The Trail serves to strengthen the legitimacy
of the Jewish peoples claim to the land of Israel.
The symbolic nature of the hike helped me to register how Israel utilizes
territorial claims as the basis for national identity. Understanding this phenomenon
has caused me to realize how space has specific social, political and economic value
in Israel. Here, on this trail, I felt the remnants of the Israeli-Arab conflict strongest.
Being a Jewish-American has biased me to a particular understanding of Israel.
Although I consider myself Jewish both in religion and ideology, my personal
understanding of Israel always changes after spending time in Israel and meeting
people who have come to terms with varied aspects of their Israeli identity.
This thesis has allowed me to dissect and reconnect the frame that binds me to
Jewish history and to Israel. My strong belief in a two-state solution is in stark
contrast to my Zionist upbringing. My Israeli mother raised me to identify with
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Jewish culture over American. When, during my teenage years my views became
more liberal, I was marked as nave and idealistic. I was often assured that when I
got older, I would become staunchly pro-Israel.
By beginning this thesis with a self-reflexive narrative, I hope to show how
my personal identity positions me in relation to my research. This thesis was sparked
by the one question I have always found so difficult to comprehend: How is it that
Israelis and Palestinians construct diametrically opposed narratives about the same
events? For example, I had never heard of the creation of Israel referred to as al-
Nakba prior to my trip 2009.
1
The history of Israel I was taught excluded the Arab
narrative in order to promote a unified vision of a Jewish Israel. Similarly, the Israeli
art I was exposed to as a child was almost always Jewish in theme. Both the written
history and the visual arts have been used to maintain these confines. The evolution
of Israeli art can be thought of as a cultural barometer of identity politics.
Israels challenge is to find a balance between the unified Jewish history of
Israel and a contemporary Israeli history that encompasses multiple narratives. Israeli
artists have been some of the most successful at striking this balance. Many artists
use their practice as a means to present alternatives to the intractable nature of a
national Zionist Israeli identity. This thesis explores how artists represent
contemporary Israelinessa version of identity that is informed by contemporary
cultural, political and social contexts. The artworks discussed in this thesis represent
1 Palestinians refer to the establishment of the state of Israel is referred to as al-
Nakba. It translates to the catastrophe.
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the ongoing friction between the traditional Zionist narrative and the contemporary
lived Israeli experience.
I will focus, in particular, on women artists who have created video works that
document and reimagine the beach and the sea as a vibrant public space. This narrow
lens allows for a questioning of the grand narrative of Israel. Public space is a
contested question in Israel as many spaces are structured to appear accessible and
fluid, but are often utilized by only one segment of the society. Although it is natural
to imagine the beach and the sea as public, the sense of freedom it provides is limited
and highly problematic.
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INTRODUCTION
The land of Israel is intrinsically connected to the Zionist-Israeli national
narrative. Land, identity and nationality are unified as one. This connection has its
roots in ancient Hebrew as the word for man (, adam) and land (, adamah)
share the same root. Thus the land, which is filled with Biblical symbolism and
divided by modern political struggles, is the cornerstone of Israeli identity formation.
Simply stated, Israeli identity is based upon the relationship between man and the land.
For over a century, Jewish-Israeli artists have been fascinated with the landscape.
Artistic representations of the land portray a uniquely Jewish landscape, one
characterized by strength, vigor and happiness. While artists traditionally employ the
man-land relationship as a way to create a sense of belonging, it is becoming
increasingly common for contemporary artists to utilize this framework in order to
demonstrate disparities in both the Zionist narrative of Israel and modern Israeli identity
formation.
One way that Israel has sought to develop its own national identity is through
the creation of a strong origin narrative and a homogenous Jewish national culture.
Both the origin narrative and the culture were developed to reinforce the popular
myths disseminated by early pioneers to Palestine. In order to separate itself from
other narratives, the origin narrative appeared as if it was looming out of an
immemorial past so that the proceeding systems could be ignored.2 The Israeli
origin narrative begins with an immemorial past of Palestine. There is never any
mention of the Arab claims to the land in Israels origin narrative. This serves to
2 Benedict Anderson,Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread
of Nationalism (London: Verso Press, 1991), 12.
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legitimize the Jewish claim to the land. The struggle to control the representation of
the past is an integral part of the Israeli struggle.3 Jewish national culture was not
based on text, but rather on creating a mood of cohesion, enthusiasm and patriotism.4
This culture exalted the interconnectedness between all Jews and their homeland in
Palestine.
The role of the artist in Israel has traditionally been to represent, mold and
propagate the need for a homeland. Territorializing the land of Palestine became the
basis of the Jewish existence, and Israelis became unified mainly by their identity as
Jews. Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the government has utilized
the arts as a tool for asserting the authority and sovereignty of the State. When
elected as Israels first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, promoted his version of
statism (Mamlachtiyut), which combined a democratic system of government with a
totalistic system of values and symbols.5 Ben Gurion hoped to phase out biblical
Judaic traditions by implementing a new system of beliefs that would reinforce the
modern collective identity of the nation. Artists were encouraged to disseminate
these symbols to the public. They produced works that reinforced ethnocentric
3 Ariella Azoulay, With Open Doors: Museums and Historical Narratives in Israel's
Public Space, in Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, ed. Daniel J.
Sherman and Irit Rogoff (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 89.4 Michael Berkowitz,Zionist Culture and Western European Jewry before the FirstWorldWar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 2.5 Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Political Religion in a New State: Ben Gurions
Mamlachtiyut inIsrael: The First Decade of Independence, eds. Noah Lucas et al
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), 171.
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particularity and cultural hegemony. Artists provided recognizable images of leaders
and recast traditional Jewish images in a national context.6
The Zionist aspiration to create a new Jew contrary to the old Jew of the
Diaspora led to the overemphasizing of masculinity. While the old Jew was
introverted, submissive and yielding, the new Jew is extroverted, assertive and
dominant. The sabra, the iconic image of an Israeli warrior who is morally and
physically superior to his enemies, best exemplifies the new Jew.7 The concept of
the new Jew is utilized by the government to garner support for offensive operations
and military campaigns. The sabra, named for a particularly hard shelled desert cactus,
also embodies gender relationsone must be offensive on the battlefield to protect the
homefront. There is very little reference linguistically in Israeli popular culture to the
soft and sweet inside part of the fruit, which is deemed as feminine. The women
artists in this thesis challenge the canon of Israeli masculinity as the essential and key
value of Israeliness.8
Public discourse strengthened the nations connection with masculine values,
and reflected the new core values of Zionism. A set of cultural and artistic practices
developed that expressed the uniqueness and specificity of Israeli culture without
truly reflecting the far more nuanced reality of the modern Israeli lifestyle. A
bifurcation developed between ideology and lived experience.
Born out of this mindset, the notion of the public sphere developed as a tool to
advance the Israeli nation as a Jewish nation. The public symbols of the State are
6 Berkowitz, 119.7 Shimona Sharoni, Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of
Womens Resistance (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 33.8 Oz Almog, The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2000), 17.
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Jewishparticularly the flag of Israel which includes the Star of David. Just as we
understand American holidays to be designated as Christian, so too are Israeli
holidays Jewish, thus excluding diverse populations. Israel struggles with balancing
universal human values such as openness, coexistence, plurality, and exclusionary
ones that isolate Israel in terms of its Jewish heritage. In order to protect its
sovereignty as a Jewish homeland, Israel must continue to exclude others from its
dominant culture.9 This has led to a narrowing of public discourse and a widening
between the ideology and reality.
In the past two decades, Israel has witnessed a breakdown of the hegemonic
Zionist narrative and a collective national identity. Israel has transformed itself into a
multicultural society and has begun to acknowledge the diverse backgrounds of its
inhabitants.10 The 2000s have been a time of turmoil and distress in Israel as the
country has faced the demise of the Oslo Peace Accord, the second Palestinian
uprising (Intifada El-Akza), and the Second Lebanon War. Massive waves of terrorist
attacks during the beginning of the decade forced the Israeli government to make
structural and ideological shifts. The government faced both internal and external
strains as infighting between different Israeli sects broke out. This infighting is a
9 In the 2008 Census by the Central Bureau of Statistics, 75.6% of Israelis are Jews,20% are Arabs, and other denominations make up the remaining 4.4%. However, by
2030, Arabs will compromise 25% of Israels population. < www.cbs.gov.il/>
10 Israel has always been an incredible diverse country, yet this diversity was ignored
for decades. After the creation of the State in 1948, Israel witnessed an influx ofimmigrants from Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Russia, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic.
However, the Western-European and American Jews (Ashkenazi) remained the most
powerful and promoted the concept of all Jews identifying as one regardless of
background.
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result of divergent views on dealing with religion, education, economics and politics.
Meanwhile, the prospect of a long-term solution between Israel and Palestine appears
ever so slim. Israelis have grown increasingly polarized between those who support
the two-state solution at any cost and those who do not.
In response to these dire national events, many Israelis have retreated back to the
ever-present atmosphere of paranoia and seclusion, typical for a society under
siege. 11 The constant overlapping of one crisis with another reinforces the need for
a strong Jewish state as well as extends the psyche of the battlefield into the public
sphere. Starting with the Second Intifada in September 2000, Israelis have been harshly
awakened from the American dream of their country as a globalized success story
and brought down to earth with a thump to face the inevitability realities of the
ongoing primordial conflict.12
In order to awaken and engage the Israeli public, many artists have separated
themselves from the traditional Zionist-Israeli narrative. They have even left Israel
for long periods of time in order to reflect freely upon their homeland. This rupture
has allowed artists to imagine a contemporary Israeli identity that speaks to social and
political change. By reflecting upon the diversity of Israels population, these artists
are situating themselves within an active public discourse. I have specifically chosen
to focus on artists who are using their work to reclaim their personal identity from the
hegemonic collective. Each artist chosen has a distinct personal relationship to
Middle East culture and geography. Although their work is locally significant, it
11 Tamar Liebes,American Dreams, Hebrew Subtitles: Globalization from the
Receiving End(Hampton, NJ: Hampton Press, 2003), 12.12 Liebes, 189.
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strives to speak to the global.
The decision to focus on video art stems from the mediums ability to quickly
respond to ones surroundingcapturing, documenting and interpreting current
events as they happen. Israeli artists working in contemporary formats have an affinity
to traditional documentary procedures such as video and photography.13 This is
partially due to the fact that Israeli culture, similar to the rest of Western society, is
overwhelmed by media. For example, Israeli television reinforces collective social
values and documents national myths in order to serve political interests. Everyone in
Israel is constantly listening to the news or watching television. As a society under
siege, Israelis feel the need to be connected at all time. Television broadcasting
reaches a wide audience and disseminates the prevailing Israeli discourse. Much public
programming reinforces the traditional Zionist narrative. By using the same medium in
their practice, artists are able to respond to the images put forth by the State. The
medium also allows for artists to offer a competing narrative to the one disseminated by
the State.
A Brief History of Modern Israel
In order to illustrate how contemporary Israeli artists are criticizing the grand
Zionist narrative of Israel, it is important to understand the traditional Zionist history
of Israel. For those readers who are not familiar with the historical events in
Palestine/ Israel, please see the chronology found in Appendix A. While the factual
13 Major museums in Israel and abroad have recently devoted entire exhibitions to
Israeli video art and/or photography. Such group exhibitions are Real Time: Art inIsrael 1998-2009 at the Israel Museum; Territorial Bodies, Museum Beelden aan
Zee; Inside-Out, Contemporary Artists from Israel, Museum Marco; Dreaming
Art/Dreaming Reality, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Dateline Israel: New Photography
and Video Art, The Jewish Museum.
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basis of each event on the timeline is rarely questioned, every community interprets
the events differently. Thus, the Israeli and Palestinian interpretation of the factual
history presents two wildly different narratives. The contemporary Jewish-Israeli
narrative begins in Eastern Europe with the creation of Zionism. While Zionism has
come to mean much more than its original doctrine fashioned, it broadly represents a
drive for statehood. Reflecting upon the nations history, Israeli author Amos Oz
observed, Zionism is a not a first name, but a surname, a family name, and this
family is divided.14
Zionism, the ideology that the founding of the State of Israel is based upon,
serves to legitimize Israels existence as well as produce a distinct Israeli identity.
Zionism is based on the notion that all Jews are members of a unified people, that
they have a right to self-determination, and that they need a homeland to escape
persecution. The Zionist doctrine is best understood in terms of its emergence as it
was shaped by the cultural, social and intellectual climate of the European
Enlightenment.
Zionism exerted its widest appeal in Poland and Russia. The Jews of Eastern
Europe shared common traditions, religion, language and customs. European anti-
Semitism and the persecution of the Jews spurred the need for a Jewish homeland.
Specifically, Zionism developed as a reaction to the Eastern European Pogroms in
1881 and 1882, and the treason trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in France in 1894.
15
14 Amos Oz,In the Land of Israel(Orlando: Harcourt Books, 1993), 128.15 Walter Laqueur,A History of Zionism (New York: Schocken Books, 1972), 58.
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Such incidents resulted in increasing restrictions and laws against the Jews in Eastern
and Western Europe.
In 1897, Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, wrote in his diary that at the
First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland, he founded the Jewish State.16
Through Zionism, Herzl hoped to establish a Jewish homeland that fused together
modernity and tradition. Herzl was aware of how important folklore, myths, legends
and heroes were in forging out new nations. He was convinced that the masses were
best reached through images. It was crucial to think in images because people were
moved by imponderables such as music and pictures.
17
Art and aesthetics became a
vehicle for the acculturation of Jewish national ideals.18
In the early 20th century, many Jews moved to the United States to escape
persecution. A large portion of Eastern European Jews also moved to Palestine. By
the beginning of World War I, approximately 85,000 Jews lived in Palestine. 19
During this time, both Jews and Arabs faced increasing hardship under the control of
the Ottoman Empire. When the British took control of Palestine in 1917, their leaders
promised both the Jewish and Arab leadership that they would control the land at the
16 Theodor Herzl, The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, ed. Marvin Lowenthal (New York:Peter Smith Publisher Inc., 1978), 165.17 Herzl, 166.18 Berkowitz, 120.19 Laqueur, 74.
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conclusion of the War.20 Although the British leaders retracted their promises once
they realized the value of the land, the Jewish leadership in Palestine had already
created a fully operative civil administration. The Jews in Palestine continued to
lobby for their own nation using diplomatic, economic and military means. The fight
for a Jewish homeland essentially became a liberationist struggle against a colonial
authority.
In July 1922, the League of Nations approved the British Mandate Of
Palestine, which provided the British with complete control over legislation, foreign
relations and domestic security. The Mandate also included a significant clause that
supported the Jews, whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical
connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the ground for reconstitution
their national homeland in that country.21 The support of the Jews resulted in
increasing tension with the Arabs. Civil unrest between Jews and Arabs escalated,
often becoming violent.
The end of World War II brought the founding of the United Nations. While
other countries in the Middle East gained independence, Palestine remained under the
British control. To help ensure the safety of the Jewish people and to make amends
for the atrocities of the Holocaust, the United Nations voted for the creation of a
20 I consciously use the word Arab to discuss the Arabic-speaking people withorigins in Palestine prior to the creation of Israel. The first use of Palestinian as an
endonym to describe the Arabic population of Palestine began in 1918. However, the
majority of Arabs in Palestine did not identify themselves as Palestinians until after
1948. The term signifies a place of origin as well as support for a Palestinian nation.Many Arab-Israelis (an Israeli term used to describe those Arabs with Israeli
citizenship) still define themselves as Palestinians.21 United Nations General Assembly, The Mandate for Palestine, San Remo: UN,
1922.
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Jewish homeland in Palestine. The United Nations 1947 Resolution declared
separate Arab and Jewish nations in Palestine, along with an international zone
around Jerusalem.22 While the Jews embraced the Resolution, the Arab leadership
rejected it. As soon as the British left Palestine, the Arab nations attacked in order to
try and drive the Jews into the sea. On May 14, 1948, the state of Israel declared
itself a free nation. Israels Deceleration of Independence documented the creation of
a Jewish homeland where the Jewish people could freely forge a spiritual, religious
and political identity.
Israel and Judaism was supposed to exist side by side as a religion and as a
nation, native Israeli and non-native, and Zionism in all its varietiesimages and
ethos were all constructed around the figure of the chalutz (pioneer), the sabra (native
born Israeli) and the fighter.23 The new Israeli was expected to emerge from the
diversified ethnic mlange. However, the melting pot policy never succeeded and the
result has been a nation that possesses three major identities based upon religion as
well as origin: the Eastern European/Ashkenazi, the Middle Eastern/Sephardic and
the Western European-North American. Despite these differences, Israeli society
continues to emphasize a collective identity rather than particularistic regional
solidarity.
The election of the first right-wing government in 1977 caused a break down
of a unified political history. The change of power led to a fertile questioning of the
unified Zionist history. The opening of the State Archives in 1978 allowed historians
22 United Nations General Assembly, The Mandate for Palestine, San Remo: UN,
1922.23 Baruch Kimmerling, War of Cultures,Haaretz Newspaper, January 7, 1996.
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to reexamine the motivations for the founding of Israel and to question whether their
founding leaders behavior was as ethical as previously claimed.24 Israeli scholars
began to encourage an ideology that was critical of Zionism. For the first time, the
homogenous Zionist Israeli narrative was critically examined. This movement was
not primarily motivated by economic considerations but by the desire to bring about
a national and social renaissancea transformed and modern society.25
Post-Zionism was first termed by Israeli social scientist Uri Ram and was used
to describe a body of academic work that critically examined the historical foundation
and day to day functioning of the modern Israeli state.
26
Although post-Zionism
originally positioned itself as a post-modern discourse, it has since become an integral
part of Israeli society. The discourse encompasses a wide range of occurrences in
Israelfrom a centralized state-controlled economy to an increasingly privatized free
market system, a national Socialist working class to middle class consumerism, and
from collectivism to individualism.27
The post-Zionist mantle covers the Zionist-Left, the anti-Zionist and the
Deconstructionist.28 The Zionist-Left accepts the Zionist discourse in relation to the
founding of the State, but objects to the way the State has acted since acquiring the
24 Moshe Moaz and Ilan Pappe,History From Within: Politics and Ideas in Middle
East(New York: Tauris, 1997), 29.25 Shmuel Eisenstadt,Israeli Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), 5.26 Uri Ram first wrote about Post-Zionism in The Changing Agenda of Israeli
Sociology: Theory, Ideology and Identity (New York: State University of New York
Press, 1995).27 Uri Ram, The Globalization of Israel: McWorld in Tel Aviv, Jihad in Jerusalem
(Tel Aviv: Routledge, 2008), 225.28 Adriana Kemp,Israelis in Conflict Hegemonies, Identities and Challenges
(Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2004), 310.
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Gaza Strip and West Bank in 1967. The anti-Zionist movement believes that the
State of Israel was flawed since its conception. They reject the current Israeli
government and want to establish a single bi-national state of Jews and Arabs. The
Deconstructionists situate Zionism within a historical and cultural context and
critically examine the sociopolitical motivations behind the movement. The post-
Zionist movement brings a critical eye to Israels history as well as tries to understand
the complex social forces in Israel.
As evident by the disparate Zionist discourses in Israel, Israeli identity is in
flux. It remains to be seen whether the plethora of competing identities that exist
within Israel can be reconciled. Although Israel is still vulnerable to the hostility of
its neighbors, Israels collective identity no longer needs to reinforce national unity
over individual experience. The relative quietness in Israel currently allows for a
break from the society under siege mentality. Individuals are able vocalize
contrasting viewpoints. This has allowed contemporary Israeli artists the freedom
they need to critically examine their past.
A Brief History of Israeli Art
Although the State of Israel was not created until 1948, a discussion on Israeli
art begins almost fifty years before the formation of the State. In 1903, Russian-born
sculptor Boris Schatz approached Theodor Herzl about creating an art school in
Jerusalem that could provide supporting visual work to the Zionist movement.
Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts was established in Jerusalem in 1906. The Schools
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mission was to connect the Jewish people to the land and reinforce Zionism. Bezalel
played a magnanimous role in providing a visual dimension to Zionism to European
Jewery.29 The School developed a style best known for fusing together Eastern and
Western techniques, Hebrew script, biblical stories and Zionist themes. The physical
landscape of Palestine was a dominant theme in the work created at Bezalel.
In the late 1920s, Bezalel witnessed a decline in its prestige and the School
temporally closed from 1929-1935. While Bezalel was closed, Tel Aviv became the
center for cultural activities and a new style developed that was influenced by such
Western European styles as Nave art, Fauvism and Cubism. Tel Aviv artists
opposed the academic realism taught at Bezalel and rebelled against those artists who
connected their work solely to religion and Jewish customs.30 The Tel Aviv artists
reflected the new Jew movement. These artists painted the Israeli landscape with
bright colors, flattened surfaces and simple compositions. Much of their work
featured idealized images of Arabs, who were portrayed working side by side with the
Jews in the fields. The Tel Aviv artists reflected energy, secularism and vitality in
their work while the Jerusalem artists continued to focus on Jewish tradition and the
Diaspora.
Clashes between the Arabs and the Jews in 1929 had a profound effect on
both communities. Many artists began to paint in darker shades, and focus on interior
29 Berkowitz, 115.30 Gideon Ofrat, One Hundred Years of Art in Israel(New York: Basic Books, 1998),
35.
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scenes instead of landscapes. The Arab disappeared from the canvas. Some artists
began to work solely in abstract styles as this allowed them to separate their work
from Jewish themes without appearing anti-Zionist.
The late 1930s and 1940s saw the development of the Canaanite movement,
an alliance of writers, poets and artists who sought to connect their work to the
ancient Middle East, specifically ancient Canaanite culture. The Canaanite artists
hoped to connect the new Jew to his origins. During the height of this movement,
the State of Israel was created.
After 1948, Israeli artists were overwhelmed by the various stories in their
lives, as their work was reactive to the Holocaust, the creation of a homeland and to
the impending military threat of the Arab Nations. Many artists turned to Social-
Realism in order to engage with such topics. Other artists incorporated traditional
Jewish narratives into contemporary scenes. The New Horizons School formed in
1948, which aimed to free Israeli painting from its local character and bring it into the
sphere of contemporary European art. They developed a style knows as lyrical
abstractionism which legitimized abstract art in Israel. The antagonism between Tel
Aviv and Jerusalem artists become more entrenched during this decade.
The next two decades saw the bifurcation of the Israeli art worldthose who
believed that art should separate itself from the socio-political realities of Israel and
those who thought that art should always incorporate Jewish themes and reinforce the
Israeli narrative. A number of artists found themselves straddling the line and
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incorporating Jewish iconography into more abstract works.
The high modernist practices of the 1960s and early 1970s were quickly
surpassed by a postmodern discourse. Postmodern Israeli art developed within the
framework of the 1969-1970 War of Attrition and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.31 After
these wars, a younger generation of artists emerged that were not afraid to challenge
mainstream Israeli consciousness.
Israeli Art Historian Gideon Ofrat outlines the aesthetic of the postmodern
movement: the work addressed the duality of life in Israel and the tension created by
the opposition of othersArab-Jew, occupied-unoccupied and even political-left,
political right.32 The change of power from Labor to Likud transformed the art world.
Political art flourished under the decade of the Likud party rule. More funding was
given to the arts; from 1977 until 1993, 80 new museums were built in Israel.33 This
time period also marked the beginning of new art movements including earthwork,
performance, installation and video art. Language or text-based conceptual art proved
an apt tool for tackling social and political issues; land and body became central
themes to investigate.
The Israel Museums exhibitionBorders from March 1980 was one of the first
shows to focus solely on the impact of boundaries in Israeli art. The exhibition
included documentation of a group of artists who met during the summer of 1972 at
31This movement should also be situated within the broader artistic context of the
early seventies. Exhibitions such as Information at the New York Modern Museumof Art and 1972s Documenta in Kassel greatly influenced Israeli artists.32 Ofrat, 312.33 These 80 museums account for over 60% of the museums in Israel today.
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the border between the Israeli Kibbutz Metze and the Arab village of Misser. Their
project illuminated the social and political impact of geographical boundaries. A
sense of confinement and isolation ran through the entire exhibition. This exhibition
set the stage for artists to deal with the politics of space within their practice.
The generation of artist born in the late 1960s and 1970s was remarkably
different from the previous generations. Unlike their forebears who experienced the
establishment of the State of Israel, this generation was born into a time of terror.
They came of age in an intense period that included the 1982 Lebanon war, the 1987
Intifada and the 1992 Gulf War. This generation was also more heavily influenced by
Western culture. In the late 1970s, regular television broadcasting began to include
Western programming. The global communication revolution changed the media
landscape. A system of economic, cultural and political interdependence developed
between Israel and the West. Government money poured into the construction of a
modern Israel, and the nation embraced a Western landscape of shopping malls, high-
rise buildings and superhighways.
By the 1990s, Israel witnessed a time of prosperity and increased tourism.
The majority of the 1990s were peaceful, allowing artists new opportunities to study
and live abroad. The Israeli art scene became more pluralistic and globalized, as Israeli
artists began to garner international attention. The participation of Israeli artists in
international biennials, festivals and fairs allowed their work to travel further than
ever before. Even when abroad, Israeli artists cont inue to address issues of identity,
war, memory and genderall themes reinforced by the realities of being Israeli. In the
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early 2000s, Israel art came to the forefront of the international art world. Artists
such as Barry Friedlander, Guy Ben-Ner, Omer Fast, Keren Cytter, Yael Bartana and
Sigalit Landau exhibited in major international art museums. The international
following of Israeli artists has dramatically increased. However, Israeli artists
continue to struggle with how their art is classified and whether or not to incorporate
Israeli and Jewish themes. While not all Israeli art is political, it is increasingly
difficult to separate Israeli art from politics. Thus, tension has developed between the
local and global interpretations of Israeli art.
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CHAPTER 1:
Place, Space & Territory
In popular discourse, space, place and territory are difficult terms to define.
Space and place are often regarded as synonymous, and territory is believed to be
identical to land. Although these terms have a rich history in social and political
science, each discipline defines and understands them differently. In the 1970s and
1980s, a vast amount of literature on spatial theory emerged. Israeli academia
became especially preoccupied with these theories, as they resonated particularly well
within an Israeli context. French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote, a whole
history of spaceswhich would be at the same time a history of powersremains to
be written.34 Many Israeli academics are focused on exploring the history of space
as a tool to better understand Israeli history.
Israeli theorists are predicated within a framework that seeks to reconcile the
present with past antagonisms. Thus, these social-geographical concepts have
considerable more implication in Israel, where they are presently linked to identity
and nationhood. While this thesis focuses on how artists incorporate notions of
space, place and territory within their work, it is necessary to have a basic
understanding of how theorists, architects and politicians regulate these terms. Israeli
architecture and planning provides Israelis with a daily context within which to
experience these spatial theories.
The majority of theorists connect space with opportunity and place with
recognized reality (Soja, Lefebvre, Harvey). Space is formed by human actions and
34 Michel Foucault,Dits et ecrits 1954-1988, eds. Daniel Defert and Francois Ewald
(Paris: Gallimard, 1994), Volume III, 192.
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interactions. Put into simplest terms, space is a social construction that is used to
define either the real (physical material) or the imagined (abstract). Although the
beach is a natural part of the environment, it is negotiated and transformed through
social and spatial practices.
Place is the physical representation of space and is rooted in a physical
location. A place can be defined as a space filled with people, objects and
representations. Theorists David Harvey notes that what goes on in a place cannot
be understood outside of the space relations that support that place any more than the
space relations can be understood independently of what goes on in particular
places.35 Thus, if space is nothing but the relationships between objects, then place
is defined as the built or natural space. Space is a social construct that creates a sense
of place. The enacting of social processes on the beach constitutes the landscape as a
social space.
According to French philosopher Henri Lefebvre, nation-states are spatially
organized to control social relations. Lefebvre links together state, space and
territory. Restricting spatiality is an inevitable part of how a state exerts power.
Lefebvres spatial triad constitutes three ways in which space is used, produced and
reproduced: spatial practice (perceived), representations of space (conceived) and
representational space (lived). Perceived space is the material expression of social
relations in space, while conceived space relates to the way in which space is
represented. Conceived space is linked to the signs and codes that allow us to read
35 David Harvey, From space to place and back again: Reflections on the Condition
of Postmodernity, inMapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global
Change, ed. John Bird (London: Routledge, 1993), 15.
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space. The lived space brings the perceived and the conceived space together.
Lived space is the space of inhabitants. It is alive: it speaks. It has an affective
kernal or centre: ego, bed, bedroom, dwelling house; or: square, church, graveyard.36
The perceived-conceived-lived triad reminds us that space is actively produced by
society. The beach does not easily fit into one of these three categories as beach-
goers actively move between these spatialities. There are aspects of perceived,
conceived and lived space present within the beach environment
According to Lefebvre, The beach is the only place of enjoyment that the
human species has discovered in nature.
37
The beach is purposefully separated from
the spatial organization of the urban landscape. Existing between land and sea, the
beach functions as a natural border and an in-between space. While the beach
appears as an empty space, boundaries and markers strictly regulate it. The beach is a
highly choreographed space where certain events are acted out again and again. The
interplay between hegemonic and marginalized practices on the beach creates both a
sense of freedom and fear. In the following chapter, the choreography of the beach
will be further explored.
Territory is both a quantifiable object and a romantic subject. Territory
represents both material elements like land, functional elements like power, and
symbolic elements like identity. Territory is three things: a piece of land, seen as a
sacred heritage; a seat of power, and a functional space. It encompasses the
dimension of identity, of author and of administrative bureaucratic of economic
36 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 1994), 42.37 Lefebvre, 384.
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efficiency.38 In Israel, territory represents both an object to be possibly exchanged as
well as a defining aspect of ones identity. A particular region of land is demarcated
as a territory when it is inextricably linked to state sovereignty and national identity.
An entire body of literature explores space, place, territory and power
relations within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Published in 1983,
Baruch Kimmerlings bookZionism and Territory was the first book devoted to this
field. Kimmerling identified patterns of control in ethno-national contested
territories. He deduces three elements necessary for nations: presence, ownership and
sovereignty.
39
By strictly controlling its territories, Israel reinforces its identity as a
sovereign nation.
Town planning and architecture in Israel represents a new kind of warfare,
one that radically alters the Israeli landscape.40 Israels architecture is based upon
carefully planned mapping that delineates inclusion and exclusion. Borders define
Israel, and these boundaries are reinforced physically through architecture as well as
socially within society. In order to enforce their sovereignty, the Israeli government
38 Pierre Hassner, Obstinate and Obsolete: No Territorial Transnational ForcesVersus the European Territorial State, in Geopolitics in the Post-Wall Europe:
Security, Territory and Identity, ed. Pavel Baev, Victoria Einagel, Ola Tunander
(London: Sage, 1997), 57.39 Baruch Kimmerling,Zionism and Territory: The Socio-Territorial Dimension ofZionist Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 20.40 In 2002, Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman won an architectural competition sponsored
by the Israel Association of United Architects. Their proposal discussed the role of
Israeli architecture in furthering the Middle East Conflict. When the IAUA reviewedthe proposal, the exhibition was cancelled under the pretense of lack of funding.
5,000 copies of the printed catalogue were destroyed. As a result of this censorship,
Segal and Weizman collaborated on A Civilian Occupation: the Political of Israeli
Architecture.
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has created a landscape that reflects ever present and never-ending temporariness.41
This permanent temporariness is key to the conflict as it allows for the normalization
of disruption.
The crafting of space and territory remains at the core of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. According to Eyal Weizman, Israel has purposefully created
flexible territories which may incorporate processes by which spaces are
constantly transformed, morphed, and claimed by action".42 He further describes
these territories:
Flexible territories describe a mobile, transformable complex offeedback-based relations between habitat and inhabitants. Becauseflexible boundaries undergo constant and continuous transformation in
response to external influence, space can be understood as the
embodiment of all forces that are applied on it. Such flexible
territories do not imply a benign environment, of course. Highlyliquid political space can be even more dangerous than static and rigid
space. This is ever more true of frontier regions, where everything is
temporary and shifting. Although in frontier geographies, anasymmetrical power balance means that the colonizer may pour across
and arrange the environment to suit its aims and impose unilateral
actions, in many contemporary frontiers, the seemingly stronger side,with its volatile "conqueror" status, could well be the losing one.Palestinian agency is manifested in its success in holding steadfast to
the ground, ... and thus playing a major part in the shaping of the
spaces of the conflict.43
Built spaces and flexible territories play a key role in sustaining socio-economic
relations in Israel. The shaping of such spaces reinforces the collective Israeli
identity as well as naturalizes physical disruptions within society.
41 Eyal Weizman,Hollow Land: Israels Architecture of Occupation (London: Verso
Press, 2005), 103.42 Weizman, 228.43 Weizman, 229.
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A more detailed discussion of the concept of thirdspace follows below. A
theoretical discussion of this term helps to decipher the intimate relationship between
the built environment and human existence in Israel. By highlighting the different
purposes and histories of Israeli sites, artists are reconsidering the relationship
between Israeli identity and the land.
Thirdspace
Thirdspace has been identified as an in-between space, a space of openness, a
risky space on edge. If firstspace represents the real, the concrete materiality of
spatial forms, and secondspace is the imagined representations of spatiality, then
thirdspace is that which is indefinable.44 The thirdspace is filled with contradictions,
ambiguities, and new possibilities. Such a space allows individuals to explore how to
negotiate contradictions in their lives. Political geographer Edward Soja calls for the
reconceptualizing of human interaction around space, stating,
The spatial dimension of our lives has never been of greater practical
and political relevance than it is today. Whether we are attempting todeal with the increasing intervention of electronic media in our dailyroutines; seeking ways to act politically to deal with the growing
problems of poverty, racism, sexual discrimination, and environmental
degradation; or trying to understand the multiplying geopolitical
conflicts around the globe, we are becoming increasingly aware thatwe are, and always have been, intrinsically spatial beings, active
participants in the social construction of our embracing spatialities.45
Homi Bhabha and Edward Soja present different theories on the thirdspace.
According to Bhabha, thirdspace is an element that challenges the hegemonic
44 Edward Soja, ThirdSpace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined
Places (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996), 6.45 Soja, 49.
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narrative as well as the perception of space.46 Thirdspace is not necessarily a position
in itself, but is something which allows for other positions to emerge. Thus, it is
representative of a space beyond political, social and cultural control. The beach, as a
liminal or in-between space, represents a space on the edge of land and sea. The
beach may induce a sense of thirdspace as it is not a fixed space but open to change.
Thirdspace challenges culture as a homogenizing force, and instead
appropriates culture as a tool for hybridization. Hybridity is best understood as a way
to overcome binary construction. Thirdspace is not a term that resolves the tension
between two cultures, but emerges from a space where elements encounter and
transform each other.47 It is an interstitial space that allows fixed identities to open
and entertain differences without an assumed or imposed hierarchy.48 The beach is
one place that allows individuals to reflect upon the illusion of social harmony, and
the fragility of such social conditions.
Thirdspace is also connected to feminist theory. French feminist Julia
Kristeva suggests that feminists should occupy the thirdspace for it is neither
patriarchal nor matriarchal.49 Kristevas thirdspace is essentially deconstructive and
functions in between the three generations of feminism. The thirdspace emerges
from a gendered process of social and political intervention within contemporary
discourse. It allows for the deconstruction of binary oppositions in order to assert
equality.
46 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 113-114.47 Bhabha, 1-2.48 Bhabha, 4.49 Julia Kristeva, Womens Time, in The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1986), 214.
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This constant stream of cultural production results in new hybrid identities
that are neither one thing nor the other.50 Such identities allow for multiple voices
and viewpoints, without furthering a hegemonic narrative. Negotiations of
contradictory and agnostic instances allow for the displacement of histories and the
creating of a new structure of authority. By functioning as a vehicle of
empowerment, individuals are able to construct new visions.
Applicable to Israel is Bhabhas use of the thirdspace in relation to colonial
power and resistance. Hybridity renders the colonial authority unable to perfectly
replicate itself and thus the distance between colonizer and colonized shrinks.
51
The
thirdspace is supposed to displace the binary of self and other, inside and outside.
However, hybridization is not necessarily positive. Particularly in Israel, the
acknowledgment between self and other could promote social and political
mobilization, but could also lead to exclusion and fear.
The artists discussed in this thesis are negotiating the Israeli narratives that
regulate their lives. They are not, however, navely celebrating hybridity. In order to
encourage multivalent thinking, these artists are creating works that straddle real and
imaginary spaces. Their practice sheds new light on the discourses on homeland,
otherness, identity, exile and displacement. These narratives emerge from the
dominant Israeli voice, yet also inspire new cultural practices. By reconsidering the
role of the individual within a public space, these artists are creating a knowable and
unknowable, real and imagined lifework of experiences, emotions, events, and
50 Kristeva, 33.51 Bhabha, 175.
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political choices that is existentially shaped by the generative and problematic
interplay between centers and peripheries.52
52 Soja, 31.
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CHAPTER 2:Contested Space: The Beach
The beach in Israel represents a way of life as well as a state of mind. A
thriving public space, the beach also embodies a territory of freedom where the
countrys strict rules do not apply. The geographical location of the beach on the
margin of established Israeli cities provides citizens with a temporary exit from the
urban social structure. The beach is established as its own unique zone and connotes
the belonging of the land to nature rather than to the built city. Thus, the beachs
success as a thriving public space stems from its ability to provide refuge from the
city. The beach is widely accessible, as well as socially constructed to allow for
discourse and friction. As a democratic commons, the beach fulfills civic and
municipal functions through the creation of an inclusive, convivial and diverse space
(Figure 2). When tensions exist between beach-goers, they are representative of the
conflicting identities that ensure the progression of a democratic society. If diversity
is what confers a democratic character to public space, than the beach may be the
most democratic space in Israel. Although Israel is a divided country with a
multiplicity of structural problems, diverse communities share the beach with
relatively little overt conflict.53
The beach can be defined as a liminal spacea space of transition between
one place and another. It is a border crossing, a place where the different worlds
53 While the beach can be categorized as a peaceful site, there have been violent
incidents such as beating, assaults and murders. I do not wish to overly emphasize the
peaceful nature of the beach, but rather to discuss it as a peaceful location free from
major conflict.
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of the inhabitants touch each other.54 The beach is not dominated by one function
it simultaneously allows and stimulates a multitude of activities and interactions. The
beach is a space of potential and becoming. For example, many Israelis visit the
beach before going to work or on their return home. For children, the beach is a
playground filled with games, ice cream and constant distractions. Teenagers,
families and couples frequently take evening walks on the beach, and the boardwalk
is a site for intermingling and courting. The public exercise equipment found on the
Tel Aviv beaches promotes cooperation and partnership. Formal and informal
interaction contributes to developing and maintaining a public domain experience
(Figure 3). This experience is based on playfulness and interaction.
The beach has helped transform the image of Tel Aviv from a city of violence
to a city of leisure and worldly pursuits. The beach represents Tel Avivs success is
normalizing Israel and reflects the convergence of modern Israeli identities. The
beach reveals both local and cosmopolitan interests. For example, Shabbat, a day that
religious Jews spend in synagogue, is the most popular day at the beach. The beach
augments Israels secular character and has become the nations alternative to
synagogue. The modern Israeli views the beach as a space belonging to the public,
regardless of ones wealth, status, religion or race.
While the majority of interactions on the beach provide for a positive public
experience, there remains the idea of the beach, just as much as the land of Israel, as a
contested site. Inherent in Israel is the struggle for belonging and access, which
54 Maarten Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp,In Search of the New Public Domain
(Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2001), 128.
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affects both Israelis and Palestinians. Although there are no laws governing access to
the beach, the Israeli military has set up checkpoints outside of many of Israels
beaches in order to monitor who enters the beach. Since the government has the
responsibility of protecting its citizens, the checkpoints exist for security reasons.
However, many Palestinians view the checkpoints as a way to keep them off of the
beaches. The northern Dead Sea beaches are geographically in the West Bank,
however, Israel continues to control the shoreline. The Association of Civil Rights in
Israel (ACRI) recently petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court on their policy of using
checkpoints to bar Palestinians from reaching the nicer public beaches. However,
Arab militants have used the shoreline as a way to float weapons into the West Bank,
and have also activated explosive floating bombs. The Israeli government has had to
close miles of beaches and deploy robotic bomb squads in order to keep the beaches
safe.
The beach is not a neutral space but is socially constructed to represent the
complex history of Israel and its inhabitants. While Israeli cities signify a form of
social control, the beach represents a space that is actually lived in. The beach, which
has a purpose far beyond consumption, allows individuals to mold a space to reflect
upon their own personalities and needs. The beach is also a representation of spatial
multi-inhabitation. It functions as a public space only though the inhabitation of
bodies, social relations and psychical dynamics.
55
The beach is a zone that counters
the nations singular dominant rule. It is suspended between various identitiesa
55 Irit Rogoff, Terra Infirma: Geographys Visual Culture (Tel Aviv: Routledge Press,
2000), 23.
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site of evacuation in which the law of each identity does not apply, having been
supplanted by a set of contingent rules.56
The beach is one of the few sites in Israel that allows for interaction between
different groups, and thus is a rare place where the diversity of values and identities
inter-mix. The beach is the setting for many Israeli artworks because it is a site
charged with social and political meanings. The beach also provides a framework for
tracing Israels relationship to its environment. A range of narratives concerning
gender, leisure, modernity, the environment and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are
present at the beach. The works of art described in this chapter provide an example
of how artists utilize the rich history of the beach in order to transform the site into an
even more complex space.
Since graduating from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in 1994, Sigalit
Landau has garnered international attention for being one of Israels most innovative
and provocative artists. Landau utilizes a broad range of media to explore the Israeli
landscape. Many of her works take place on the shore or within the sea. This setting
allows Landau the freedom to explore the social and political aspects of her homeland
without dealing didactically with overtly political subjects.
InBarbed Hula (2000), Sigalit Landau stands naked on a Tel Aviv beach
hula-hooping with a piece of barber wire (Figure 4). The barbed wire makes a
continual revolution around Landaus torso; each barb grazes at her flesh and her
torso becomes bruised. The restrained, gyrating motion of her hips keeps her body in
constant contact with the wire. Her torso becomes a projection surface reflecting the
56 Rogoff, 120.
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imprint of the hoop. The camera slowly zooms in and out to show the gouges on her
body (Figure 5).
The one-minute and fifty-three second color video is shown on a loop so that
the action becomes endless and monotonous. Her head and lower legs are cropped
out of the frame, forcing the viewer to focus solely on the movement. The work tests
Landaus endurance and physical threshold. The endless loop references both the
cyclical and centrifugal forces. The motion may also serve as a metaphor for the
Sisyphean struggle of human existence.
The continuous gyrating motion mesmerizes the viewer as he is forced to
watch this painful action with no reprise. It is becomes unbearable to watchBarbed
Hula as the viewer imagines Landaus self-inflicted pain increasing. On close
examination, the viewer notices the barbs are turned outwards so as not to afflict
physical wounds to Landau. It becomes more dangerous for her to stop hula-hooping
than it is for her to continue performing.57 Hula-hooping is actually protecting
Landau, because the barbs are facing outwards. However, the fact that the barbs are
in plain sight causes the viewer to experience the pain. It becomes very difficult to
separate Landaus gashes from the barbed wire even though the wire is not the cause
of the bruises.
Barbed Hula was developed as a non-public act. 58 It was preformed on a
public beach in south Tel Aviv. The work is conceived as a performance for the
57 Sigalit Landau, Artist Talk: Global Feminism, ( Artist Talk at the Brooklyn
Museum of Art, Brooklyn: March 23-25, 2007) < http://www.brooklynmuseum.org
/opencollection/objects/5131/Barbed_Hula>.58 Landau, Artist Talk.
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camera, and Landau does not envision it as a performance for an audience. In order
to procure a relatively empty beach, Landau shot the film at five a.m., just as dawn
was breaking. While the beach in Israel represents leisure and normalcy, Landau
situated this particular act on the beach because of its emblematic role in the
modernization of Israel. The beach symbolizes one aspect of the new Jew as it is
the beach where he finds solace, not the synagogue. In this work, Landau is
representative of the new Israeli. However, this new identity is constantly encircled
by outside forces (symbolized by the barbed hula hoop). The outside forcessuch as
memory, ritual and politicscut into this new identity, making it physically unsafe to
step outside of its boundaries.
Barbed Hula is symbolic of various narratives including the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, Jesus crown of thorns, the Holocaust and feminism. One obvious reference
is to the childhood memory of hula-hoops and its relation to sexuality. Although
hula-hoops are believed to have originated in ancient Egypt, they did not become an
international craze until the late 1950s.59 In Japan and Indonesia, as well as within a
multitude of other communities, hula-hooping was banned for being too seductive as
it was not appropriate to shake ones hips in public.
The barbed wire is also representative of borders and the loss of freedom.
This analysis is twofoldconnected to both Israel and the Holocaust. Many
Holocaust images show victims herded together behind ominous-looking barbed wire
fences. Barbed wire is a common symbol in the depiction of Holocaust art. Landau,
59 Antonia Fraser,A History of Toys (London: Spring Book, 1972).
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like most Israelis, lost family in the Holocaust.60 In a public talk at the Brooklyn
Museum of Art, Landau referenced the Holocaust as a stimulant for Barbed Hula.
Additionally, barbed wire cuts across Israel, and there is such an abundance of
it that it completely blends into the landscape. Barbed wire allows for territorial
appropriation under the guise of protection. The wire also symbolizes repression as it
forcefully separates one territory from another, often dividing communities in half.
By shooting this work on the beach, Landau contrasts the natural border of the sea
with the artificial barbed-wire borders that demarcate Israel.
The act of hula-hooping references the politics of power, gender and
sexuality. Landau is imprisoned by multiple sources: the hoop, her sexuality, the
camera and the looping of the video that allows for no relief. Her nude body is
stripped of excess and the frame emphasizes the female form. The body is exploited.
Landaus movement is reminiscent of a belly dance, yet in this performance she
escapes pain by continuing the dance. As the artist writes:
The hula is also a game, a dance, and its also protecting me, becausewhen I stopped doing the hula hoop, thats when I got wounded. It has
to do with the need to keep going, because when I stop, I have to jump
out of the hoop so that the barbs dont touch me.61
The work also positions itself in relation to the body art movement practiced most
notably by Marina Abramovic/Ulay, Chris Burden and Gina Pane. By using her body
as the primary material for her work, Landau presents the materiality of the human
60 Landaus Viennese grandmother lost family in the holocaust but she was able to
flee to London. Rahel Musleh, Making Circles,Hadassah Magazine, June/July2008.61 Lesli Camhi, Centrifugal Force: Unraveling the Art of Sigalit Landau, Tablet
Magazine: A New Read on Jewish Life. (June 2008). http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-
and-culture/739/centrifugal-force/ (accessed November 12, 2009).
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body as both subject and object. Art Historian Kathy ODell connects masochistic
performance art of the 1960s and 1970s to the war-induced instability experienced
by the artists.62 Masochistic performance models continue to resurface as a tool for
negotiation during times of crisis. Thus, the advent of masochist practices in Israeli
art is fitting. Instead of providing a numbing experience, the masochistic
performances teach the viewer how to actively respond to uncomfortable situations;
Perhaps we need to experience these responses in order to desire a form of
negotiation that can turn senselessness, alienation, imbalance and numbness into
something constructive.
63
The metonymy of the body also relates to binary of the law and the home.64
To Landau,Barbed Hula is about the vagina and wounds in my flesh.65 She talks
freely about trying to reconcile contrasting identities, particularly as an Israeli and as
a woman.66 InBarbed Hula, the body is devoid of any distinctive features or
markings of identity. The body represents the inner face of the human being.67
Landau presents herself as a singular identity. Thus, the act of hula-hooping naked on
the beach is both public and private. Although it is performed in a public space, the
nudity and intimacy of the piece constructs a more private narrative. The work
62 Cathy ODell, Contact with the Skin: Masochism Performance Art and the 1970s
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 75.63 ODell, 83.64 ODell, 12.65 Sigalit Landau. Interview by Paulina Pobocha.Museo X.
http://www.museomagazine. com/issue-10/sigalit-landau (accessed November 19,2009).66 Landau, Artist Talk.67 Ruth Ronen, The Body Decomposed, Moving as One in Sigalit Landau, eds.
Gabriele Horn and Ruth Ronen (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2008), 231.
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represents the friction between public and private, real and symbolic, collective and
singular. The viewer must ask: isBarbed Hula an image of self-mutilation or of
ecstasy?68
Barbed Hula also situates itself within religious practices particularly the
sacrificial rituals that date back to the origin of religion. The work evokes a primeval
ritual in which pain is associated with pleasure. Barbed Hula explores ritual,
particularly how rituals function as performances. Landau is fascinated by how
rituals live on in collective memory and history. As a secular Jew, Landau does not
participate in many of the collective rituals of her country.
69
However, she recognizes
the potency of such acts and how easy it is to translate these recognizable acts into
something unidentifiable. She is both reinventing ritual and radicalizing it.
Smadar Dreyfus, a contemporary of Landau, also utilizes the Israeli shoreline
to project and negotiate her Israeli identity. Unlike Landau, Dreyfus moved to
London in 1990 after graduating from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Although
she lives now in London, her Israeli upbringing serves as the impetus for much of her
work.
Lifeguards is a two-screen large scale audiovisual installation displayed in a
pitch black exhibition space.70 The culmination of over three years of research,
Lifeguards debuted at the 2005 Istanbul Biennale. The two screens are displayed on
opposite sides of the room and alternately play short related pieces. On one side is
68 Ronen, 241.69Sigalit Landau, Interview by Paulina Pobocha.70 I was unable to view this work in its original installation. Communication with the
artist and documentation provided me with information on the layout ofLifeguards.
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silent footage of a large group of people swimming off the coast of Tel Aviv in the
Mediterranean Sea. The swimmers are predominately women and children. They are
tightly packed within the frame and drift into one another (Figure 6). The water scene
is an archetypal image of leisure. No sound is heard from this scene. Without
warning, the calming image is interrupted by the second screenan audio track of the
lifeguards harsh commands and the sound of the people in the Sea. The sound
recording continues to alternate with the silent image. While the video portrays a
scene of pleasure, the audio sounds dangerous. It is the interplay between image and
sound that makesLifeguards extremely powerful to view.
Smadar Dreyfus is interested in exploring the intersection of the aural and the
visual. She is preoccupied with the way that culture is embedded within speech
and how language informs identity.71 By separating the aural and the visual,
Lifeguards illustrates how a singular voice cannot only dictate interactions, but
change how the exchange is perceived. The video of the swimmers is tranquil when
separated from the sound. The audio track is thunderous and ruthless. The
lifeguards tone is militant although their purpose is protective. What is the role of an
authoritative voice in a public space such as the beach? Is the lifeguard a moderator, a
guardian or an oppressor?
The lifeguards voices direct the scene. Their voices focus the viewers
attention to particular aspects of beach culture. Their calls vary in subject from
looking for Judith, a missing child, to warning about jellyfish. Although
synchronized English subtitles flash onto the black screen, it becomes increasingly
71 Smadar Dreyfus. Press Release. London: Miro Victoria Gallery, 2006.
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difficult to read them as the lifeguards commands are barked at a quickening pace.
The viewer can only take in so much of the audio track as the speed of the commands
obstructs the ability to comprehend them. While the video effortlessly captures the
movement of the Sea, the audio track transforms the beach from a tranquil
environment to a place of fear.
The viewer, who is completely immersed in the video because of its size,
becomes disoriented by the separation of image and sound. One is forced to
physically move back and forth between the two screens. The separation of the aural
and visual emphasizes the difference between the two senses. The viewer participates
in Dreyfus choreography as they move back and forth across the room. The
controlled switching between aural and visual, spoken and written, sound and silence
intensifies the viewing experience.
The threshold of normalcy is redefined inLifeguards.72 The separation of the
image and sound creates the feeling that the swimmers remain unaware of lifeguards
commands, seemingly unwilling to recognize the impending danger that the
lifeguards warn against. However, it is the installation of the work that causes this
separation. It is impossible to know whether the swimmers were at all responding or
interacting with the lifeguards due to the separation of the visual and aural in the
installation.
Dreyfus took the footage forLifeguards in 2002, an extremely tense time in
Israel because of the Second Intifada. She would escape to the beach, but felt the
72 Helen Legg, Smadar Dreyfus,Istanbul Biennale 2005. http://www.iksv.org
/bienal/bienal9/ (accessed December 1, 2009).
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conflict just as strongly there due to the lifeguards militaristic tone. She recalls,
Reality felt rough to me, like sandpaper. So inLifeguards the voice is speaking at
you, there is no answer back.73 By highlighting the cycle between security and
insecurity,Lifeguards complicates the idea of the beach as a public space that
functions outside the realm of conflict.
Many Israeli artists are preoccupied with the social and physical attributes of
the beach, particularly as a site to capture the complexity of Israeli public life. As an
outside observer, it is difficult to fully comprehend the negotiation of public space in
Israel. However, Canadian-Israeli artist Lezli Rubin Kunda combines her personal
narrative with the Israeli landscape in order to present an environment constantly in
negotiation.74
Kundas practice is based upon exploring her personal relationship to the
environment. She performs similar actions in different locations, always utilizing
local materials and landscapes. Kunda has become well known for her walks.
Walking is a recognized practice within contemporary art, but its roots trace back to
the derive and the French Situationists. The act of walking can be incredibly
political, signifying engagement and/or resistance. Kunda considers her walks live
art as the purpose of each walk is the video documentation, which serves as the
73 Smadar Dreyfus. Conversation Between Curator and Artist: Interview by Tessa
Praun, in Smadar Dreyfus Exhibition Catalogue, (Stockholm: Magasin 3 Stockholm
Konsthall Press, 2009).74 Lezli Rubin Kunda was born in Toronto and moved to Israel permanently in her
early thirties. Landau attended a religious Jewish day school in Canada yet always felt
alienated from the organized Jewish community. Kunda identifies as an Israeli
although she recognizes that a multitude of narratives inform her identity.
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primary artifact.75 Each walk takes on a different meaning depending on the context
of the site.
Walk to the Sea exemplifies Kundas ability to take an ordinary activity and
heighten its meaning. The project was conceived as part Day of Simultaneous
Actions for the FIX02 Catalyst Arts Performance Festivalin Belfast, Ireland.
Artists from all over the world performed at the same time and the performances were
projected at the festival in Ireland. Walk to the Sea takes place on a hot night in
September, a time set by the FIX02 Catalyst Arts Performance Festival.
The three-minute video begins at Rabin Plaza at City Hall in Tel Aviv. This
is a historically meaningful site in Israel as well as personally connected to Kunda
(she was there when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated). She drags behind her a string
ofsabras (Figure 7). As you may recall from the Introduction, a sabra is extremely
symbolic in Israeli culture. The fruit is hard on the outside but extremely sweet on
the inside. Sabras can survive extremely harsh conditions; thus both Palestinians and
Israelis identify with it as a symbol of their strength
Kunda walks a popular boulevard towards the Mediterranean Sea. The video
effortlessly captures the vibrancy of Tel Aviv nightlife and the movement of people
throughout the city. Yet no one acknowledges Kunda as she passes (Figure 8).
During the performance, Kunda remembers feeling invisible as if she was outside of
the spectators horizon.
76
The walk continues along the boulevard towards the Sea.
Once she reaches the beach, the feeling of loneliness becomes overwhelming, as she
75 Lezli Rubin Kunda. 2010. Interview by Author.76 Lezli Rubin Kunda. 2010. Interview by Author.
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is the only one there (Figure 9). The walk ends with Kunda immersed in the
Mediterranean Sea (Figure 10). Her submersion purifies her and releases her of her
sins.
In Walk to the Sea, Kunda is mapping the space between Tel Aviv, the beach
and the sea. Walk to Sea is a work of perpetual traveling. Although extremely
simplistic in conception, the work examines the complex realities of public space in
Israel. By picking a particularly symbolic place to start the walk (Rabin Plaza) and
ending in the Mediterranean Sea, Kunda transverses traditional boundaries. Her walk
is destabilizingit references historical aspects of Israel as well as alien elements.
The route, which many Israelis take to reach the beach, becomes unfamiliar. No one
belongsnot Kunda or anyone who passes by her. To the unwitting observer, the act
is unrecognizable as a performance. The lack of interaction creates the feeling of
misunderstanding and abandonment.
Walk to Sea documents multiple symbols and sites in order to present the
complexities of space in Israel. As evident in this work, public space does not always
function to its capacity. Israelis tend to ignore actions that are outside of their
comfort zone. Kunda is encouraging those around her to rediscover their connection
to the land and to themselves.
Landau, Dreyfus and Kunda all utilize the beach as a setting through which to
explore the problematic representation of land in Israel. Their work is a critique of
the spatial practices utilized by those in power. By using such a recognizable location
(the beach) and layering symbolic objects (barbed wire and sabras) Landau, Dreyfus
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and Kunda are deconstructing the dominant discourse and unraveling the process
through which discourse is produced.
The beach constitutes a unique site where it is possible to witness the struggle
over identity formation. Nationality, ethnicity, class, gender and religion all influence
ones identity. Although the beach functions as a public space, identity markings
become even more apparent there. While contention and struggle exist within all
three works, each piece also presents the possibility for negotiation and hybridity
within Israeli society.
CHAPTER 3:
Critical Perspectives: The Sea
To many Israelis, the bodies of water in Israel represent a great abyss filled
with infinite possibility. A number of Israeli artists seek to capture these waterways
for their expansive vistas, quiet powers and sublime nature. However, these
waterways represent much more than the historically captured romantic image. In
Israel, water is symbolic of active contemplation and clear political ideology. Israel
is materially and emotionally linked to its waterways. For example, the
Mediterranean Sea is viewed as a main source for survival as it provides a means of
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escape as well as a gateway to the rest of the world. Throughout the Arab-Israeli
conflict, Arab leaders have pledged to drive the Jews into the sea in order to eradicate
the Jewish nation. Although water is traditionally symbolic of purity and ritual
cleansing, water in Israel is purely political.
A connection between water and life is found in all of the worlds major
religions. Major biblical stories such as Creation, Noahs Ark, and the parting of the
Red Sea portray water as a powerful instrument of God. In all of these stories, the
expansive nature of the sea is perceived as both serene and terrifying. The shifting
immensity of the sea creates an unnerving relation between man and God. While
most Israelis do not contemplate the role of water their everyday life, they are well
aware of its role in Israels survival.
Almost every war fought by Israel has had its roots in water politics nearly as
much as it did in territorial expansion. In a country restricted by land (its land
borders are sealed by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt), the Mediterranean Sea has
both a physical and psychological value. Although Israel is physically reliant on all
of its water sources, it is particularly dependant on the Mediterranean as it is a
strategically necessity to reach the outside world. Each waterway within Israel also
serves a psychological value as it creates a visually open horizon line for an otherwise
small country. Thus, the daily tranquility of the waterways is mirrored by their
immensely powerful role in Israels survival (Figure 11).
In order to understand the political value of water, a discussion of Israels
water resources is necessary. Israel is located within the Jordan Valley catchments
basin. With little rainfall, most of Israel is dependant on the Jordan River for water.
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