Nir Evron and Miki Kratsman’s video works at “Promised Land”, Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions, Tokyo, Japan

Curator: Maayan Sheleff

Schedule:

Sat. 09.02.13, 11:30

Sat. 13.02.13, 15:00

Tue. 19.02.13, 15:00

Venue:

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

“Promised Land” is compiled of works by Israeli artists of various generations, for which video and moving image is their major medium. They use this medium\’s characteristics in various ways to construct a subjective view of a complex political reality. Some create poetic takes on the documentary genre that no longer attempt to represent an objective truth and instead question the possibility of a common historical narrative. Others perform symbolic actions that address the border between a private history and a collective memory. Still Others paste together archival materials, or stage and reconstruct memories of the past, in a manner that projects on both present and future.

The term “Promised Land” , according to the bible and the jewish tradition, is the land promised by god to the Israelites. Through questioning historical narratives, both private and public, the artists externalize the contradictions and complexities of this charged land and its inhabitants.

Nir Evron, In Virgin Land, 2006 Digital Video on DVD, 12 min, Stereo Sound

Nir Evron\’s work, “In Virgin Land”, is a minimalistic voyage comprised of almost still black and white shots of landscape taken in Israel. The landscape seems barren and untouched, devoid of human presence. A narrator recites a text in Hebrew, which appears to be his travel diary, written in the far past. The work underlines the impossibility of an absolute truth, and emphasizes what is left out of the common narrative of “the promised land”- it\’s inhabitants.

Miki Kratsman and Boaz Arad, 21.04, 2002, DVD, 246 min.

In the work “21:40”, the artists, Miki Kratsman and Boaz Arad, ask passers-by to stage and reenact the murder of Israeli ex primeminister Rabin in the place of the murder, a public square now named after him. This event is a seminal traumatic moment in the memory of many Israelis, the symbolic death of the hopes for peace and a normal future. The reconstructing of the event differs among the executers, at times technical and informative, at other times dramatic and almost grotesque.