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Indepth Arts News:
"Made in Palestine: the first U.S. Exhibition of Contemporary Palestinian Art"
2006-03-15 until 2006-04-22
Bridge Gallery
New York, NY,
USA United States of America
"Made in Palestine" at the Bridge Gallery in New York, is the first museum-quality exhibition devoted to the contemporary art of Palestine to be held in the United States. It is a survey of work spanning three generations of Palestinian artists who live in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, parts of Israel, Syria, Jordan, and the United States. "A rare opportunity to view contemporary art from Palestine... a longer look at daily life in Palestine than our edited nightly news snapshots ever reveal.... The quality is exceptional. What these artists add to our minds' images of destruction and despair from this troubled region is an underlying sense of consciousness,strength and hope, both in themselves and their people." - ArtvsHouston Gallery Review. The exhibition runs until April 22, 2006.
The exhibition was curated by James Harithas
during a month long stay in the Middle East, aided
in his mission by Palestinian artist Samia Halaby.
Made in Palestine premiered at The Station Museum
of Contemporary Art in Houston, Texas and in 2005
traveled to San Francisco, CA, and Montpelier, VT.
"Another vision of Palestine and its people...
Through a mix of painting, photography, sculpture,
textiles, and video, the artists sow tales of love
and loss. They speak of struggle and success. But
probably most importantly, they offer hope for the
future." - The Christian Science Monitor
The artists have been gaining recognition in both
regional and international arenas. They utilize a
multiplicity of techniques, mediums, and aesthetic
styles such as realism, abstraction, and
conceptual art. They have been influenced by
ancient and contemporary art of the Near East and
Egypt as well as by such Western approaches to art
as Arte Povera and Installation Art. The works
range from monumental pieces that impact the
visitor upon immediate entry to the gallery, to
pieces of a more intimate nature that invite close
attention.
Linking ancient and modern myth, Mustafa Al Hallaj
uses fantastic and folkloric imagery in his
296-foot-long print, Self Portrait as God, the
Devil and Man. Emily Jacir's video installation
Crossing Surda is a document of Jacir's
experiences, some banal, some harrowing, of
crossing the militarized Surda checkpoint that
separates Ramallah, where she lives, from Birzeit
University, where she teaches. In I, Ishmael,
Suleiman Mansour creates clay "emblems of decay"
that are "dry, cracked and distorted, reminding us
of dispersion, waste, pain and death."
Palestinian artists, like their peers in Europe
and the United States, are thoroughly
contemporary, but with a significant difference -
the Palestinian artist is deeply concerned with
the historical fate of the Palestinian people and
issues of life, death, freedom and justice.
"It's hard to imagine peace if Palestinians can't
even be heard on their own terms." - The New York
Times
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