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Ayreen Anastas, I met you met she met he met we met they met, 2008, courtesy of the artist. |
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Destruction of Gaza, from Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios for the transformation of Israeli settlements, Courtesy UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme |
Centre for Fine Arts Jerusalem, the mid-1950s — Amoz grows up on one side of no man's land. In his parents' flat he maps out military strategies to protect the Jewish people. In his social environment he is hardly ever, if at all, confronted with an Arab. Sari grows up on the other side, at a distance of less than a hundred metres. His parents are hardly aware of the Holocaust. They have been driven away by the Israeli army. The families of Amoz Oz and Sari Nusseibeh lived next to each other, absorbed in their own tragedies. Nusseibeh: “Is it not the inability to imagine what the life of the 'other' is like that is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” The Palestine Festival presents a variety of cultural events which will give visitors the opportunity to discover the many facets of contemporary Palestinian arts. This initiative is being organized in close cooperation with the Masarat Festival at the Halles de Schaerbeek within the context of the first edition of the Brussels Biennial event which is aiming to promote a wide range of projects from different institutions in joint partnership. Never-Part, There are certain things one would never part with. This intimate relationship, beyond any materialism, is what inspires the narration of Never-Part. The exhibition brings together objects and artworks that Palestinian artists from four corners of the world, would never give away, sell or discard. The personal histories of these artists, their reasons and destinies, put the exhibited elements in context. On the occasion of Masarat Palestine, this original exhibition tells the story of a narrator who draws inspiration from works inseparable from their authors, each of whom is a Palestinian artist. They form a part of their experience of life and, over time, crystallise the essence of lives lived. A way to capture the intimate side of the torments of a nation in shreds. A respectful look at a diaspora and a dream of a dispossessed people. Artists include: Jumana Abboud, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Sobhi al-Zubaidi, Ayreen Anastas, Asad Azi, Mona Hatoum, Janah Hilwé, Emily Jacir, Vera Tamari (in collaboration with Tania, Nasir and Vladimir Tamari), Sliman Mansour, Marwan Rechmaoui, and Nida Sinnokrot. Crossing Surda, Since March 2001, checkpoints have blocked the road between Ramallah and Birzeit, making access to the university and around thirty Palestinian villages difficult. In December 2002, camera in hand, Emily Jacir wanted to pass through this barrier and thus bear witness to the absurdity of the situation. After the Israeli army confiscated her video cassette, she resumed her mission, but this time with her camera in her bag. Since March 2001, the Ramallah-Birzeit Road has been disrupted by a checkpoint manned by Israeli soldiers, APC's and sometimes tanks. This road was the last remaining open road connecting Ramallah with Birzeit University and approximately 30 Palestinian villages. On December 9th, 2002, I decided to record my daily walk to work across the Surda checkpoint to Birzeit University. When the Israeli Occupation Army saw me filming my feet with my video camera, they stopped me and asked for my I.D. I gave them my American passport and they threw it in the mud. They told me that this was "Israel" and that it was a military zone and that no filming was allowed. They detained me at gunpoint in the winter rain next to their tank. After three hours, they confiscated my videotape and then released me. I watched the soldier slip my videotape into the pocket of his army pants. That night when I returned home, I cut a hole in my bag and put my video camera in the bag. I recorded my daily walk across Surda checkpoint, to and from work, for eight days. All people including the disabled, elderly, and children must walk distances as far as two kilometers depending on the decisions of the Israeli army at any given time. When Israeli soldiers decide that there should be no movement on the road, they shoot live ammunition, tear gas, and sound bombs to disperse people from the checkpoint. — Emily Jacir, 2003 It is now May 2004 and the situation has worsened. I can no longer move freely through the borders with my American passport. I can not make the project "Where We Come From" today. I am no longer allowed to enter Gaza, and certain Palestinian towns in the West Bank. Israel is relentlessly moving forward in the construction of the Apartheid Wall which began in the spring of 2002. Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios The Bethlehem/London based architectural collaboration of Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti and Eyal Weizman, uses a series of architectural proposals to open an arena of speculation about possible futures for Palestine. The exhibition deals thus with a fundamental question: how Israeli colonies and military bases the architecture of Israels domination could be reused, recycled or re-inhabited by Palestinians, at the moment it is unplugged from the military/political power that charges it. Areas of Palestine liberated from Israeli presence provide a crucial laboratory for the multiple ways in which we could imagine the reuse, re-inhabitation or recycling of the architecture of Israel’s occupation at the moment it is unplugged from the military/political power that charged it. This project forms thus as an “arena of speculation,” in which a series of discussions around this problem would take place. Israeli colonies are built on stolen Palestinian land and are amongst the most excruciating instruments of domination. This is the reason that the project assumes that a viable approach to the issue of their appropriation is to be found not only in the professional language of architecture and planning but rather in tuning to the multiplicity of voices, individuals and organizations, and in the incorporation of varied cultural and political perspectives. There were various historical precedents for the reuse of decolonized architecture. These depended generally on the location, period, and process of decolonization. Evacuated colonial architecture was alternately understood as symbols for racist ideologies, as physical entities embodying power relations, as military weapons or ammunitions, as the site and instruments of a crime and even as haunted places. At other situations they were seen as economic resources, bargaining chips, and even as “piles of bricks,” the accumulation of the materials composing them. Destruction is often based on the desire to turn time backwards, reverse development into virgin nature, or into a tabula-rasa, on which all potential forms of development and land use would be possible. This is a very appealing approach, particularly given the abhorrence aroused by colonial development. But demolitions may not be the only, or even the best way to deal with the burden of memory. Rather than the ruralization of built up areas, destruction would create further environmental damage. For example, the homes in the settlements of Gaza were destroyed, but underneath their paving there was no longer the white sand dunes to be found, their rubble has rather released its toxic content into the ground. Another strong temptation present throughout the histories of decolonization was to re-occupy colonial buildings and infrastructure and reuse them in the very same way they were used under colonial regimes. Such repossession tended to reproduce some of the colonial power relations in space: Colonial villas were inhabited by new financial elites and palaces by political ones, while the evacuated military and police installations of colonial armies, as well as their prisons, were often used by the governments that replaced them, recreating similar spatial hierarchies. Evacuated colonial architecture did not always reproduce the function it was designed to perform, there are numerous examples of other functions, planed and spontaneous that have invaded the evacuated architecture of colonialism, subverted, made another uses of it, traversed it and reconfigured its connectivity. All built matter can change its use, and even the most horrific of structures could surrender to the formless typologies of new life. The strangest of juxtapositions between function and structure could thus be generated and new connections formed. This is our starting point in dealing with the scenario of the evacuation of Israeli colonies and military camps, calling for the subversion [transformation] of the evacuated spatial infrastructure of these colonies, using their structures to ends other that those they were designed for. Simply reusing the liberated structures of Israeli domination, according to some of our interlocutors in Palestine, might reproduce their inherent alienation and violence; the settlement’s system of fences and surveillance technologies would thus serve their seamless transformation into gated communities for the Palestinian elite. This project is realized by Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, Eyal Weizman. Guest curator is Lieven De Cauter |
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Jumana Abboud, 1996-2003 #1, 2003, courtesy of the artist.
Emily Jacir, Crossing Surda.
Al-Muqata, October 2007, from Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios for the transformation of Israeli settlements, Source: Wikipedia.
Al Muqata, Arafat’s mausoleum, January 2008, from Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios for the transformation of Israeli settlements, Source: Wikipedia.
P’sagot seen from Al Bireh, from Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios for the transformation of Israeli settlements.
P’sagot, inside the settlement, from Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios for the transformation of Israeli settlements.
Oush Grab, the public park under construction in the area of the former tank parking, from Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios for the transformation of Israeli settlements.
Oush Grab, from inside the turret of the only almost intact watch tower of the camp, from Decolonizing Architecture, Scenarios for the transformation of Israeli settlements. |
Subversion N.23. israeli’s watch tower in Bethlehem into a birdwatching tower used by the Palestinian Wild life society © g.r. | D.r. |
Military Camp of Oush Grab © Francesco Mattuzzi. |
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Pensive bodhisattva, Three Kingdoms period, Early 7th century, National Treasure n°83, © National Museum of Korea, Seoul. |
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Gold Crown, Silla, excavated from Noseo-dong, Gyeongju, Height 24 cm, Treasure n° 338, National Museum of Korea.
Heavenly King of the West, Joseon, 19th century, 318,0 x 202,5 cm, National Museum of Korea. |
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Centre for Fine Arts As part of the Korea Festival, the Centre for Fine Arts is showing masterpieces of Buddhist art from the history of Korea. For more than 1,600 years Buddhism has played an important role in Korean society. When it arrived in Korea, Buddhism was strongly influenced by native religions; the teachings of Buddha also formed the country's most important bond with neighbouring China and Japan. Countless works of art and everyday objects bear witness to the influence of Buddhism. Buddhist motifs and images have been widespread since the fifth century. Among treasures on display are a number of “national treasures” from the National Museum in Seoul, including the gilded bronze Maitreya figure from the early seventhth century, and a selection of grand paintings of the Goryeo period. Exhibition curator is Jan Van Alphen. Scenographer is Lee Preedy. Through its geographic location between China and Japan, Korea served as an intermediary of culture, economy and religion between both countries. Thus in the fourth century Buddhism arrived via China in Korea, where it was influenced by native shamanistic religions. Later these Korean Buddhist teachings had an impact on Japan. Although Korea had a lot of exchange with its neighbouring countries, it developed its own culture. Buddhism occupies a central position in Korean society: numerous works of art and daily appliances give evidence of Buddhist influence. Korean sculptures, paintings, ceramics and architecture, inspired by Buddhism, have specific and unique characteristics. The exhibition ends with extraordinary pencil drawings by the contemporary “Maestro of Korean Art” Park Dae-Sung. |
Banner Pole of Dragon Head, Unified Silla, 9th century, Gilt bronze, H. 80 cm, Treasure n° 1410, Daegu National Museum. |
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Paul Klee, Bartolo: La vendetta, oh! la vendetta!, 1921, Oil transfer drawing and watercolour on paper on cardboard, 24,4 x 31,2 cm, Privatbesitz, Schweiz. |
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Centre for Fine Arts In the latest of its monographic exhibitions devoted to major modern artists, the Centre for Fine Arts takes an unusual approach to the work of the Swiss artist Paul Klee (1879-1940), one that corresponds to the painter's own vision of the world. A devotee of the theatre, as the exhibition shows, Klee created a mental world in which, from a poetic point of view and in complete freedom, he saw — imaginatively, even ironically — the world as a vast stage, a huge set in which characters move. As a trained musician, moreover, his teaching at the Bauhaus brought the visual arts face to face with the language of music. Paul Klee (December 18, 1879-June 29, 1940) was a Swiss painter of German nationality. He was influenced by many different art styles in his work, including expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was a student of orientalism. He and his friend, the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, were also famous for teaching at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture. Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee (near Bern), Switzerland, into a musical family — his father, Hans Klee, was a German music teacher at the Hofwil Teacher Seminar near Bern. Klee started young at both art and music. At age seven, he started playing the violin, and at age eight, he was given a box of chalk from his grandmother and was encouraged to draw frequently. Paul could have done either art or music as an adult; in his early years, he had wanted to be a musician, but he later decided on the visual arts during his teen years. He studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich with Heinrich Knirr and Franz von Stuck. After traveling to Italy and then back to Bern, he settled in Munich, where he met Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and other avant-garde figures and became associated with Der Blaue Reiter. Here he met Bavarian pianist Lily Stumpf, whom he married; they had one son named Felix Paul. In 1914, he visited Tunisia with August Macke and Louis Moilliet and was impressed by the quality of the light there, writing, "Colour has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever... Colour and I are one. I am a painter." Klee also visited Italy (1901), and Egypt (1928), both of which greatly influenced his art. Klee was one of Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four), with Kandinsky, Feininger, and Jawlensky; formed in 1923, they lectured and exhibited together in the USA in 1924. Klee influenced the work of other noted artists of the early 20th century including Belgian printmaker Rene Carcan. Klee worked with many different types of media — oil paint, watercolor, ink, and more. He often combined them into one work. He has been variously associated with expressionism, cubism and surrealism, but his pictures are difficult to classify. They often have a fragile child-like quality to them and are usually on a small scale. They frequently allude to poetry, music and dreams and sometimes include words or musical notation. The later works are distinguished by spidery hieroglyph-like symbols that he famously described with, "A line is a dot going for a walk". His better-known works include Southern (Tunisian) Gardens (1919), Ad Parnassum (1932), and Embrace (1939). Following World War I, in which he painted camouflage on airplanes for the imperial German army, Klee taught at the Bauhaus, and from 1931 at the Düsseldorf Academy, before being denounced by the Nazi Party for producing "degenerate art" in 1933. The degenerate art exhibit catalogues had even called Klee's work "the work of a sick mind." Composer Gunther Schuller also immortalized seven works of Klee's in his Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee. The studies are based on a range of works, including Alter Klang [Antique Harmonies], Abstraktes Terzett [Abstract Trio], Little Blue Devil, Twittering Machine, Arab Village, Ein unheimlicher Moment [An Eerie Moment], and Pastorale. Another of Klee's paintings, Angelus Novus, was the object of an interpretive text by German philosopher and literary critic Walter Benjamin, who purchased the painting in 1921. In his "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Benjamin suggests that the angel depicted in the painting might be seen as representing progress in history. In 1933, Paul Klee returned to Switzerland; in 1935, he began experiencing the symptoms of what was diagnosed as scleroderma after his death. The progression of his fatal case of the disease can be followed through the art he created in his last years. He died in Muralto, Switzerland, in 1940 without having obtained Swiss citizenship. The Swiss authorities eventually accepted his request six days after his death. When Paul Klee died at age 60, he left at least 8926 works of art. The words on his tombstone say, "I belong not only to this life. I live as well with the dead, as with those not born. Nearer to the heart of creation than others, but still too far." Today, a painting by Paul Klee can sell for as much as $7.5 million. A museum dedicated to Paul Klee was built in Bern, Switzerland, by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. Zentrum Paul Klee opened in June 2005 and houses a collection of about 4000 works by Paul Klee. Another substantial collection of Klee's works is owned by chemist and playwright Carl Djerassi and displayed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. |
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Paul Klee, der Mann mit dem Mundwerk (The man with the big mouth), 1930, Pen, pencil and watercolour on paper on cardboard, 43,5/43,9 x 42,5/43 cm, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Schenkung Livia Klee.
Paul Klee, Springer, 1930, Watercolour and pen on cotton on plywood; original frame, 51 x 53 cm, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Schenkung Livia Klee, © SABAM Belgium 2008.
Paul Klee, Ballett scene, 1931, Watercolour on paper on cardboard, 29,8/29,4 x 37,7 cm, Privatbesitz Schweiz, Depositum im Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern.
Paul Klee, Angstausbruch III (Outbreak of fear III, 1939, Watercolour on primed paper on cardboard, 63,5 x 48,1 cm, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern. |
Paul Klee, Leontine, 1933, Watercolour on paper on cardboard, 48,5 x 62,2 cm, Privatbesitz Schweiz, Depositum im Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern. |
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