{"id":33127,"date":"2024-05-10T15:52:04","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T13:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=33127"},"modified":"2024-05-10T15:52:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T13:52:04","slug":"this-year-in-venice-its-the-palestine-biennale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/this-year-in-venice-its-the-palestine-biennale\/","title":{"rendered":"This Year in Venice, it’s the \u201cPalestine Biennale\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
As thousands of Gazans wait out an uncertain fate on the edge of the Mediterranean, these islands in the Adriatic send their love across the seas, offering up an artistic wedding in absentia. At this year\u2019s Venice Biennale, Palestine looms large.<\/h5>\n

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Hadani Ditmars<\/span><\/h4>\n

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The 60<\/span>th<\/span> iteration of the iconic art fair has become a set piece for regional tensions, with calls to <\/span>boycott the Israeli pavilion<\/span><\/a> by <\/span>ANGA<\/span><\/a> (Art not Genocide Alliance) and the Palestine Museum US followed the decision by <\/span>Israeli artists and curators to close their own exhibition<\/span><\/a> until a ceasefire materializes. Meanwhile, as Israel and Iran traded fire, Iranian opposition groups called for a <\/span>boycott of the Iranian pavilion.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Closed
Closed Biennale Israeli pavilion sign in window.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For 24-year-old Gazan artist Malak Mattar, <\/span>whose first solo show in Venice<\/span><\/a> opened recently at the <\/span>Ferruzzi Gallery across the canal from the Peggy Guggenheim Gallery, \u201cshowing my work here feels more urgent than ever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While not part of the official Biennale program, her exhibition, entitled The Horse Fell off the Poem<\/em>\u00a0after the eponymous poem by Mahmoud Darwish, is definitely part of the biennale gestalt.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the IDF continued its merciless assault on Gaza, a recent <\/span>demonstration<\/span><\/a> in front of the Israeli and American pavilions organized by ANGA coincided with Mattar\u2019s opening on April 17th. While Mattar was busy receiving art world luminaries, posters of her art, alongside other Palestinian artists including Raed Issa and Maryam Ali, were featured in the protests and plastered on Venetian walls. Biennale Director Adrian Pedrosa\u2019s theme of \u201cForeigners Everywhere\u201d has been transmuted into the Palestinian experience of exile and occupation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Emily
Emily Jacir and Andrea de Siena in SOUTH WEST BANK, “Paesaggio Umano,” dance performance, 2022 (photo by Nurin Kaoud, courtesy of the artists).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The official collateral show <\/span>SOUTH WEST BANK<\/span><\/i><\/a> – Landworks, Collective Action and Sound<\/span><\/i> focuses on works produced by artists, collectives and allies in and around the southern West Bank in Palestine. As organized by <\/span>Artists + Allies x Hebron<\/span><\/i>\u00a0and presented in collaboration with\u00a0<\/span>Dar Jacir for Art and Research<\/span><\/i>\u00a0in Bethlehem, it aims to \u201c<\/span>strengthen the connection of expressions and cultural identities within changing urban and agricultural landscapes,\u201d and to \u201c<\/span>share a voice centered on historical transmissions of memory and collectivity.\u201d Indeed, my chat with Malak Mattar is interrupted by a surprise visit from Emily Jacir, part of the South West Bank group show happening, in that uniquely surreal Biennale global village way, just around the corner and over the bridge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not far from here either is the exhibition Foreigners in their Homeland: Occupation, Apartheid, Genocide<\/em>, organized by the Palestine Museum US. Hosted at the European Cultural Centre\u2019s historic Palazzo Mora, it features artworks ranging from world-renowned abstract artist Samia Halaby to new sketches by displaced Gazan artists produced in tents.<\/span><\/p>\n

The recent opening of their exhibition \u2014 by far the most ambitious of the three \u2014 unfolds like a wedding, with Palestinian artists in diaspora joining in person, by Zoom, and, for those still living in tents in Gaza, in spirit. Samira Badran, whose work explores <\/span>the notion of collective memory, the<\/span> fragmentation of the body and the territory, barriers, and restrictions, is here in person. Attending by Zoom are Rasha al Jundi, Khaled Jarada and Michael Jabareen, who tells the assembled crowd, \u201cThis exhibition is about getting our voices out there. By presenting Palestinian art and stories, I hope these artworks will get stories stuck in your head and remain with you a long time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As guests \u2014 many wearing keffiyehs \u2014 pack the gorgeous gallery at the Palazzo Mora, a giant map of Palestine reimagined as a carpet, welcomes them. As in years past, many Palestinians come to look for their villages on the map. And yet, for all its success, this exhibition of 26 artists almost didn\u2019t happen. Initially rejected by the biennale, the <\/span>European Cultural Centre then stepped in to offer the historic Palazzo Mora as a hosting space. <\/span>And esteemed artist Samia Halaby stepped up to offer one of the most significant works in the exhibition \u2014 <\/span>a striking 1.24×3.83 meter acrylic on canvas painting titled \u201cMassacre of the Innocents in Gaza.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The day of the exhibition opening, <\/span>her work \u201c<\/span>Black is Beautiful<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span> went on to win a special mention from the biennale. In an <\/span>Instagram post<\/span><\/a> she dedicated her prize to the \u201cpress of Gaza,\u201d saying, <\/span>\u201cThe heroic youth of Gaza reporting visually, with their cell phones and their lives, the daily application of genocide have given human culture an invaluable and rare gift of collectively created work of documentary art. Its epic proportions are meaningful to Indigenous peoples everywhere reminding them of their own undocumented experiences.<\/span>
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