Films with English subtitles.

22nd of April (Saturday)

4 p.m. — Introduction by Ilana Tenenbaum

4.30 p.m. — Part I: EARLY EXPERIMENTS IN FILM AND VIDEO: PART I
1970-1980. Curated by ILANA TENENBAUM
Total running time: 64 minutes

The first section of Staring Back at the Sun focuses on experimental film and video made in the 1970s, when artists were beginning to explore the formal aspects of the moving image. Some of these artists worked primarily in other mediums, particularly painting, and their videos can be seen as extensions of these material investigations. Other artists were interested in the nature of the moving image, from its production to its reception, with several works featuring television screens. These works are also informed by seismic shifts in Israeli society at the time, particularly the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and the 1977 elections.

5.30 p.m. — Introduction by Ilana Tenenbaum

6 p.m.  — Part II: AN ART FORM COMING INTO ITS OWN: PART II 1980–1997. Curated by ILANA TENENBAUM
Total running time: 30 minutes

The second part of Staring Back at the Sun showcases how developments in digital image processing and post-production tools impacted what little experimental video was being made in the 1980s and early 1990s. In Israel, the media and the communications sector as a whole developed and expanded rapidly. Visual culture became more collage-like as seen in these works, yet art at the time focused primarily on drawing and painting. The few artists working with video posed questions about digital production within the expanded technological possibilities of the medium, often literally expressed through the depiction of the video camera and the television monitor, symbols of its production and reception processes.

7 p.m. — Discussion with curators of the program Ilana Tenenbaum and Avi Feldman and curator of WRO Art  Center - Piotr Krajewski

Staring Back at the Sun: Video Art from Israel, 1970-2012, traces the development of contemporary video practice in Israel and highlights work by artists who take an incisive, critical perspective towards the cultural and political landscape in Israel and beyond. Staring Back at the Sun showcases 35 artworks, including early performances, films and videos never before presented outside of Israel. Divided into four historic and thematic sections, this program focuses on the activist impulse in video art-making in Israel over the last four decades. Informed by the international history of video art, the program traces the development of the medium in Israel and explores how artists have employed technology and material to examine the socio-political status quo through themes such as the prominence of political conflict in mass media; the liberalization of the economy; and the impact of free market politics on Israeli culture.

participating artists: Boaz Arad, Maayan Amir & Ruti Sela, Yossi Atia & Itamar Rose, Yael Bartana, Irit Batsry, Guy Ben Ner, Hila Lulu Lin Farah Kufr Birim, Michael Druks, Buky Schwartz, Benni Efrat, Avraham Eilat, Nir Evron, Yair Garbuz, Gideon Gechtman, Moshe Gershuni, Tamar Getter, Dor Guez, Sigalit Landau, Raffi Lavie, Motti Mizrachi, Avi Mograbi, Michal Naaman, Joshua Neustein, Miri Nishri, Nira Pereg, Dov Or-Ner, Gilad Ratman, Roee Rosen, Henry Shelesnyak, Ran Slavin, Doron Solomons, Micha Ullman, Rona Yefman [& Tanja Schlander], Dan Zakhem, Nana & Boaz Zonshine

curators: Yael Bartana, Sergio Edelsztein, Avi Feldman, Chen Tamir, Ilana Tenenbaum 

Yael Bartana is a Berlin-based artist best known for videos that explore the relationship between documentary and fiction. Her work engages with cultural and collective identity in relation to social phenomena such as ceremonies and rituals.

Sergio Edelsztein is director and chief curator of the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, which he founded in 1998. He has curated numerous exhibitions in Israel and internationally, including Israel's pavilion at the 24th São Paulo Biennial (1998) and the Israeli pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2005 (Guy Ben Ner) and 2013 (Gilad Ratman).

Avi Feldman is an independent curator and writer based in Tel Aviv, Berlin and Dresden. He was the director and co-curator of Vdance International Video and Dance Festival at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, and has worked as associate curator for avant-garde film at the Jerusalem International Film Festival and the Petach Tikva Museum of Art.

Chen Tamir is curatorial associate at Artis and curator at the Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv. She was recently listed by artnet as one of 25 women curators on the rise and by Artslant as one of 15 curators to watch in 2015. She is organizing curator of this program.

Ilana Tenenbaum is an independent curator based in Haifa, Israel. Previous positions include chief curator of contemporary art at the City Gallery in Kfar Saba, Israel and founding director and curator of the New Media Center at the Haifa Museum of Art. Her curatorial work focuses on the research and documentation of video art, including projects such as Videostoria, the first exhibition series to systematically survey the history of the projected image in Israeli art. 

Piotr Krajewski – curator and writer, his focus is contemporary art and new media. He is a co-founder of WRO Media Art Biennale and it’s artistic director, since the first edition in 1989. He is a chief curator at WRO Art Center in Wrocław, Poland. He collaborates with many established artists, curates exhibitions in Poland and internationally. He is an author and publisher of multimedia publications and anthologies focused on polish media art. He is a lecturer at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. He is also a jury member at several international festivals and competitions, i.a. Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Transmediale Berlin, EMAF Osnabrück. He is a member of The Council of the Museum at MOCAK (Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow). Member of AICA.

Program organized with Artis with support from the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv.
https://artiscontemporary.org/
http://www.polishinstitute.org.il/

In cooperation with:

Organized with the support of: