While it is commonly believed that nations have always existed, in fact they are a relatively modern phenomenon. Throughout human history communities have identified themselves not as part of a nation, but as belonging to a group, or more directly – to a certain family, tribe, or village. Unlike a family or a village, however, a nation is a concept that does not coincide with any unequivocal scientific definition. The attempt to define a nation via economy, language, or ethnic affiliation is impossible. What defines a nation is national affiliation. It seems that the definition of nationalism cannot find an external foothold, and is perceived as tautological (the state is the political manifestation of the ”us”, and is founded on nationalism, which implies the politicization of the ”us”).
National belonging transforms elements such as language or ethnic belonging into constituents of a nation. In the modern context we see buds of nationalism (during the 18th century) in the intensification of the middle class, in capitalism, the dissemination of print media which created linguistic unification and a cooperative consciousness, in the disintegration of organic communities due to the market economy, in the religion crisis and the need for a substitute, in the weakening validity of the absolutist regime, etc. Scholars disagree on whether nationalism is a quintessentially modern phenomenon, as maintained by Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, Eric Hobsbawm, and others, who tie it with cultural, economic and conceptual changes in the modern world, or whether it is a direct continuation of the ethnic identities of the ancient world and Middle Ages, with called-for adaptations for the modern world.
In the late 20th century, in the wake of the globalization process, it momentarily appeared as though the era of nationalism had come to an end. The significance of nation-states decreased concurrent with a devaluation of the notion of nationalism. Its centrality was undermined by universalist perceptions of humanity, and by narrower concepts, such as ethnic group, religious group, etc. In fact, many scholars indicated the end of the era of nationalism and the birth of a new era – the post-national era.
Simultaneously with the post-national tendencies which were manifested, for example, in the strengthening of the European Union over national division, the late 20th century also saw conspicuous phenomena of renewed national prosperity. In Eastern Europe, in regions in the former USSR, national awakening occurred among various peoples. This happened in the Baltic countries, in the Muslim republics in the Caucasus, Ukraine, Moldova, etc. Yugoslavia is a conspicuous example of a federation that disintegrated into its constituent national elements. In Western Europe as well one may discern national awakening among minorities that demand independence, such as the Basques in Spain, the Welsh and Irish in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, the Corsicans and Bretons in France, the Austrians in South Tyrol, etc, simultaneous with the claims of non-European peoples, such as the Palestinians, the Kurds, and the Tamils, for independence.
The video works selected for the current exhibition (most of them belonging to the pseudo- ocumentary genre) recount, from the artist’s subjective perspective, the stories of communities that have undergone ideological, national or religious revolutions in the 20th century, thus allowing us to regard the artist’s endeavor as one that offers a sphere of subjectivization, a realm of alternative narrative through the canonical narrative. The participating artists refer to symbols, rituals, linguistic changes, architecture and art, and the way in which the state strives to generate structures of national culture – a yearning for cultural hegemonization (identity, territory, language) and the blurring of boundaries between the state and society.
The artist, as an individual or as part of a group, can generate a unique narrative that exists concurrently with the main narrative told by the artistic establishment (while acknowledging that the latter tells the story of the state) or he can undermine it. The contemporary artist’s role is not to accompany, justify or praise the government, but rather to generate a critical approach to violence and terror, to the oppressive power and the official government, and to protect the individual’s sovereignty against the state’s oppression.
The works of Anri Sala and Cao Fei represent two crossroads in the exhibition,indicating the artist’s place. One tells of a relationship between the artist and the state under totalitarian communist regime, and of art’s possibilities in the wake of such a regime; the other shows an activist artist who has opted for politics after the fall of a totalitarian communist regime.
In her video Father, Cao Fei follows her father casting a sculpture of Deng Xiaoping (1904- 997), a revolutionary and one of the leaders of the Communist Party in China, the acting ruler of China between 1976-1997 and the second generation strongman in the party’s leadership, under whose rule Chinese economy evolved into its current status as a developing economy among the strongest in the world. The People’s Republic of China was founded in October 1949. Fei represents the young generation of artists in China, allowing a gaze at the former generation. Between 1966 and 1968 Mao Tse-tung tried to eliminate the religious and educational institutions. Professors, monks and nuns, writers and artists were beaten or forced to kill themselves. Today’s China is still not a democracy. Nevertheless, a new generation of artists is pushing the boundaries. The censorship rules are unclear. But while commercial and personal freedoms seem almost unlimited, the public and political are still closely monitored.
In her 88-minute video Fei moves in and out of her father’s private and public life as an ”official” sculptor. Deep feelings of love for him blend and clash with acute criticism of his life’s work. In realistic style and with documentary objectivity, Fei exposes a naked reality where one must constantly maneuver between the desire to grow and develop and the wish for social recognition, on the one hand, and the possibility of getting rich and gaining recognition via political kitsch and even corruption, on the other.
In Dammi i Colori (’Give Me Color’), Anri Sala returns to his hometown, Tirana, in Albania, driving through the city with Edi Rama, the current mayor. In his films Sala sensitively and piercingly presents the political, social and cultural changes that have occurred in Eastern Europe. By combining personal experience with fragments of collective memory, and the conspicuous use of cinematic techniques, Sala’s stories introduce the diverse problems resulting from the ongoing changes experienced by his homeland, Albania.
In 2002 artist Edi Rama was elected mayor of Tirana, Sala’s hometown. As an anti-Communist activist, he initiated an extensive campaign in his jurisdictionintended to rehabilitate the city. Constant, inevitable budgetary problems ade the rehabilitation of the city which was destroyed during the Balkan wars and in the transition from communism to democracy difficult. This situation led Rama to develop creative ideas that would enable him to rehabilitate the torn city, improve its appearance, and unite its community.
The film documents a ride through the city at night during which Rama tells about his role as mayor, comparing the encounter with his constituency to an artist’s encounter with his audience. Rama unfolds a doctrine that sounds as if it were extracted from theories pertaining to color and form developed during Modernism. The nocturnal ride takes place while a large spotlight located on the car’s roof illuminates the façades painted with geometrical patterns in vivid, phosphorescent colors. The color codes are explained to the camera, making for a new reading of the buildings. The refined visual sights, the results of the cinematographic gaze with hints of lyricism, sketch a poetic image that reflects a restrained hope for this forgotten European locus.
The pseudo-documentary video trend became relevant as part of the global intercultural infiltration of contemporary posttotalitarian art. Simultaneous with the fall of the regimes, new themes emerged in the artistic discourse which previously, under the circumstances of the totalitarian society, were not pertinent enough, or could not be discussed for political reasons. Among the new fields of interest one can mention a critique of the power of the state, the media, consumerist apparatuses, and social violence, as well as exploration of issues pertaining to gender, race, multiculturalism, and ecology. In this respect, Solmaz Shahbazi’s trilogy about the city of Teheran stands out. In her rilogy she explores the city that has undergone a fundamental change since the Shah period by asking questions about gender, the social life of the youth, architecture, the social sphere and the public sphere, and the attitude to religion.
Persepolis is the third video in the trilogy about Teheran. Its title alludes to the modernist buildings in northern Teheran, where the artist resides. The film is comprised of a collection of memories from pre-revolutionary Teheran. Shahbazi’s neighbors describe the city in different times. Neither the city nor the speakers are seen on video; only through their voices and the appearance of their living rooms can the viewer imagine the city that experienced a revolution in1979. Iran’s population has doubled itself since the revolutionary days. 70% of the population today is under 25. Some 80% can read and write in comparison to only 40% before the revolution. The young population indeed seems to be on the right track to changing lifestyle in Iran.
Post-totalitarian visual art from the Balkans and East Europe finds itself in an unstable, danger- idden setting, albeit one that is also rife with powerful stories, intense relationships, and dynamic turning points. This art displays moderate pathos with regard to social transformations and politics, and at the same time, it is underlain by natural skepticism and a certain distance characteristic of personal views about system-wide processes. In the social context, the work of art often assumes the nature of social and cultural marker, whose significance lies in the application of basic principles of reality documentation, in confronting reality with its manifestations. The represented reality is viewed from the perspective of its specific historical, social, cultural, and aesthetic aspects. An aesthetic code is revealed whose basic function lies in its ability to shape a reference which is at once authentic and tautological.
Erzen Shkololli’s works reflect events that symbolize the social polarization in his homeland, Kosovo. His rich artistic strategy consists not only of a focus on the peripheral background of the events, but also of the ability to extract global insights from the margins regarding ethnic, religious or political fate, affiliation to the Muslim community, membership in a totalitarian pioneering organization, and an ambivalent relationship with the European Union, which is now, in fact, Kosovo’s protector.
The video piece Hey You… documents a musical performance of legendary Albanian singer, Shkurte Fejza, whose performances combine elements from Albanian folk music and from popular music. Fejza has become, especially in the 1980s, a symbol of national resistance. The song is a letter addressed to Europe, referring to the split Albania and Kosovo, to Kosovo that now exists solely by virtue of the fact that the allies run state affairs. Fejza turns to the nations of the world not to divide Albania, whose flag (which is also Kosovo’s flag) bears the image of the double-headed eagle. She asks them not to split the eagle in half, but rather leave it double-headed. Fejza’s songs were banned between 1981 and 1983 by the former Communist regime. In 1986 she was imprisoned for her political activity, and stopped singing altogether when thegovernment fell.
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav’s famous maxim, which emphasized the importance of settlement in the Land of Israel, ”The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but the essential thing is to have no fear at all,” was written into a song that shifted from religious culture, and became a popular song in secular society as part of singalong evenings. Sing-along is a cultural phenomenon that regained popularity several years ago, upon the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada (October 2000) and the sense of dejection at the failure of the peace process. Various groups in Israeli society still gather to sing together good old Israeli songs expressing nostalgia and a wish for a better future.
Widespread in Israel alongside folk dancing, sing-along is a custom with a large percentage of the population since the pre-State days, forming one of its identifying features. Myth has it that sing-alongs were held in the granary at the end of the day’s agricultural work. Until recent years those who participated in such events were mainly older people who sang nostalgic songs, such as those of the IDF entertainment troops, but several years ago it also became prevalent among young people who gather to sing with slides or songbooks. Efrat Shvili directs a camera at the singing participants. Each is represented on an independent monitor, but together they sustain the group. The singing fuses them into a unit, giving solace and the support of togetherness.
Most rituals are based on the principle of recurrence. It is a repetition of fixed rituals associated with religious festivals, traditional or political historical dates, that generates a sense of stability or persistence. The same applies to selfgenerated regular rituals. As we get older, we tend to cling to our private rituals which are unique to us, reflecting our values and world view.
Alongside the youngsters who carry on the tradition of their parents and society, there are others who choose to rebel against values that have, to their mind, become worn out and no longer represent contemporary Israel. In her recent works, Yael Bartana explores these groups of young people who question the country’s morality, calling for a re-examination of myths vis-à-vis the present day reality. In Sirens’ Song, A group of young people is playing wind instruments on the Tel Aviv Promenade, against the backdrop of the country’s flags suspended on the power lines. Wearing jeans and white shirts, the youngsters play Naomi Shemer’s song Makhar (”Tomorrow”), but thetune is interrupted as the instruments must compete with the noise of passing cars whose horns sound like booing for the dream of ”tomorrow, when the army sheds its uniform, our hearts will stand at attention…”. In Greek mythology, the sirens’ beautiful song seduced the sailors who passed by their abode; those who heard their song from afar, jumped to their death at sea or directed their ships to the rocks where they sank.
Since the 1970s the one-dimensional picture of the past, disseminated in Israel at every possible representational front, has been slowly cracked. In the 1980s, the Lebanon War and the first Intifada accelerated the rifts that have since gaped more rapidly. The second Intifada reinforced these ruptures, but also created one that did not exist before. The rifts are now discernible in cinema, photography, plastic art, prose and poetry. They do not, however, imply a transition from the dominant narrative to an alternative narrative, but rather the existence of multiple narratives at the same time, preventing homogenous, one-dimensional reading.
In Yochai Avrahami’s Friend or Foe, the helicopter is identified as either saving or threatening, castrating or phallic, a deadly weapon or a rescue aircraft. As such, it represents the duality underlying Israeli society whose moral code continually oscillates between the victim’s position and that of the aggressor. The duality inherent in Israel’s self-image – a strong country/vulnerable country, we are the masters of our own fate/we are victims, we are a normal country/we deserve special treatment – is not new; it has been a part of the state’s unique character since its establishment. Israel’s decisive focus on its isolation and singularity, its claim that it is at once a victim and a hero, were previously part of its charm, like David in his fight against Goliath. But the current state of affair is different. Pre-1967 Israel was indeed tiny and threatened, but almost forty years have passed since, and Israel’s condition has changed. Nevertheless, what Israel has lost in terms of its international image due to the ongoing occupation of Arab territories, it regains by virtue of its identification with the renewing memory of the European Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
Through four short chapters touching upon her personal biography, Nurit Sharett in her video Identity addresses issues of national identity, ethnicity, foreignness, and gender. Each chapter presents an object associated with her identity, accompanied by a personalstory rife with irony: her ID card, IDF discharge papers, a Swiss passport, and paper money. Through her personal story Sharett discusses the set of conventions underlying Israeli culture which for three decades has been undergoing a process of destruction of conceptual, social, cultural and political structures and construction of alternative ones. The most conspicuous among these struggles were the feminist, the ethnic, and the Palestinian struggles. Within each of these a group narrative was constructed – turning inward and outward – a group creating its own mythology and rewriting history from its own point of view. This act of construction resulted from the realization that the way in which the group had been described and interpreted by the canon, the ”Israeli collective” (which is the privileged in the power structure), was insufficient, and often – misleading.
The artist, as an individual or as part of a group, can generate a unique narrative that exists concurrently with the main narrative told by the artistic establishment (while acknowledging that the latter tells the story of the state) or he can undermine it. The contemporary artist’s role is not to accompany, justify or praise the images of war, but rather to generate a critical approach to violence and terror, the oppressive power and the official government, and to protect the individual’s sovereignty against the state’s oppression.
The sound installation by Khaled Hourani and Miri Segal, describes Hourani’s experiences while crossing the Gaza-Ramallah border. The installation sets out to convey the situation of the Palestinian people doomed to silencing, blindness and isolation. By separating Hourani’s voice, as he reads the text (which he wrote) in Arabic, and splitting the Hebrew translation, the installation attempt to convey a sense of social, cultural and everyday isolation.
”The horizon is blocked and nothing remotely resembles what the entrance to Gaza used to be like years ago. A two- or three-story building. Barbed-wire fences and control towers and body search points are located outside the mute building. Strict security nspections welcome you upon entry. The soldiers sit in a room behind thick glass, facing state-of-the-art computers. The room looks like a space station. Your picture appears on screen when you start waving your papers behind the glass. You then begin the entry process. The cameras follow you, and the loudspeakers give instructions in a jumble of languages. They order you to stop andperform a self-search. Turn around; take off your coat in the middle of the long tunnel leading to the Gaza Strip. The building and gates keep you distant from the soldiers. You must obey the orders whose exact source you cannot tell.
The decisive tone infuses you with a sense of emptiness and solitude. You are carefully watched. You don’t know whether you should hasten your step or rather walk slowly. Whether you should put your hands in yours pockets or not. The instructions of a poor director in an irony-filled play. You are controlled by the voice. All you have to do is obey the orders and keep silent. There is no one to hear you, and you cannot explain or ask anything. Once you enter the tunnel, the doors around you open and close automatically as in science fiction movies. You become a receiver and an examinee, you cannot transmit; you cannot examine or speak to anyone. You are the one being addressed. A one-way contact. You are an object, not a subject. An a-priori suspect. Surrounded.” [From: The Roud to Gaza: Univesal Rituals in a Local Content, Khaled Hourani. Highlighting, Miri Segal].
Gulsun Karamustafa’s video installation, The Settlers, features two women, each on a separate screen, with a picturesque landscape behind them. The two screens simulate river banks, serving as a space for the stories of those who were forced to leave their physical and spiritual home and their memories behind. The films are screened simultaneously. During the screening each presented image is replaced by the other. Each film starts on one screen, crosses the virtual boundary toward the adjacent screen, where it ends, and so on and so forth. The Settlers is a poetic piece recounting the story of two women living on opposite banks of a river. Each ends her life on the other bank, where she confronts the other’s environment, a place which was supposed to mark a fresh new start, but can never be so, due to the emotional baggage left by the war. The work is dedicated to those who were driven out of their homes between 1877 and 1994 during the endless wars in the Balkans.
Another piece, by Köken Ergun, also deals with Turkish society and the national and cultural changes it has undergone. A young man is trying to cover his head with a scarf bearing the Turkish flag. Gracefully and elegantly, he tries to arrange the scarf several times, but fails each time, finally breaking into tears. In the midst of the heated debates about head covering in the Turkish Parliament, the Turkish president sent personal invitations for the annualRepublic Day celebrations to members of the Parliament, most of whom belong to the conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) in order to prevent their wives from arriving at the event with the traditional Islamic head covering. Horrified by this act of secular conservatism, Köken expresses his personal protest, setting out to underscore the predicament of the contemporary Islamic body.
In the time of the Ottoman Empire the Muslim rule prevailed whereby the religious scholars, the Ulama, determined the framework for the country’s laws according to the Sharia, Islamic law, while the secular ruler was free to operate within the lines drawn by the Ulama. This custom and the resulting rules were canceled in Turkey close to the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, in keeping with Ataturk’s desire to transform Turkey into a modern country and adopt the European life style. Today Turkey is fighting to be accepted as member of the European Union, and in keeping with Ataturk’s approach, it demonstrates its European facets and customs adopted in the country since the establishment of the Republic, while hiding the Islamic customs prevalent mainly in the rural population. Ergun’s work introduces a fundamental social and cultural question about the freedom of the individual in the public sphere, perusing secular coercion, mainly toward Islam, not only in Turkey, but in other European countries as well.
History and shared memory are the adhesive connecting members of historical communities. These make national solidarity natural and self- vident. Nationalism as a new phenomenon brings together communities that do not necessarily share a common history and a common memory. The notion of community is gradually expanding with the acknowledgement of communities that do not sustain a shared collective memory or geographical cooperation, but rather find other common denominators, such as the homo-lesbian communities throughout the world that hold common activities such as festivals, or virtual communities formed around shared interests, etc. New communities adopt the same patterns of communal identity markers (emblems and rituals), that help them define their affiliation. In order to create a uniform communal identity, the new nation generates an imaginary history assisted by virtual emblems.
The flag resurfaces throughout the exhibition in the works of Bartana, Avrahami, Ergun, and Mark Napier. Each country in the world has a flag thatidentifies it with its land, symbolizing the victory over a new territory. The best remembered image in the 20th century was that of the American flag hoisted on the rocky terrain of the moon. The emblem of one country on earth all of a sudden became the flag of the earth as a whole. At the same time, one may argue that the flag’s hoisting in outer space presents a territorial claim to the moon itself.
In the new millennium we witness different nations demanding the right of possession over a new territory – the Internet. A virtual territory is no longer a geographical location. It is a new land with various resources on which you may make claims; it is a manmade space underlain by an infrastructure that bears the potential of information, communal identity, economy and progressive politics. Those who control the hardware and software can facilitate or block access to web resources.
At the heart of this new sphere are the Internet users – today’s pioneers – who explore the potential of the virtual public domain. The first to connect had the unprecedented opportunity to explore a new notion of nationalism and personal identity. In the geographical spread of the net in dot.com, the Internet domain seems to have replaced the nation-state. Before most nations had an official representation on the net (such as an official site), they already tried to take over the new resources. From experience we know that political forces wish to dominate the virtual space. What kind of relationships will be possible in the future between the existing national identity and the domain in the virtual space?
A visitor to Napier’s net.flag views the flags of various nations and can even change their design according to his nationality, political or a-political as well as territorial views. net.flag explores the flag as an emblem of territorial identity, enabling one to adapt the visual language of the flags to ideological perceptions. The interface of the online program created by Napier provides anyone who has access to the Net an opportunity to explore nationalism’s field of form and color.
Galit Eilat
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
