Banksy recently traveled to the war-torn Gaza Strip, where the artist has created a new series of works, documented on his website. Pieces include an immense kitten drawn on the wall of a demolished building, and a crying figure inside the doorway of another leveled site, both documented in a video made during the artist’s time in Palestine. (more…)
Ramallah-based artist Khaled Jarrar, part of the New Museum’s group exhibition on contemporary Arabic art, has been prevented by Israeli authorities from leaving the country to attend the museum exhibition. Jarrar, whose works often explore and document the flux and bureaucratic grey areas of the Israeli-Palestinian borders, was blocked from leaving for “security reasons.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal reports on musician and artist Charlemagne Palestine’s special sound installation in the stairwell of the Whitney Museum for this year’s Biennial. Featuring a set of speakers ascending the museum staircase, covered in stuffed animals and fabric, the work plays off the reverberant nature of Eli Breuer’s concrete architecture. “I’ve been coming to the museum since it was built, and I’ve always loved the staircase,” says Palestine. “This particular kind of concrete has a fantastic resonance. It’s Taj Mahal-esque.” (more…)
Bashir Makhou, Giardino Occupato (Installation View) (2013) All photos by Sophie Kitching for Art Observed
Otherwise Occupied is an exhibition of Palestinian artists organized by al Hoash, a Palestinian art organization based in Jerusalem, as part of the 55th International Art Exhibition at Venice Biennale 2013. The show is one of 48 Collateral Events hosted around the city. The exhibition features the work of two prominent, internationally renowned artists: Bashir Makhoul and Aissa Deebi. Makhoul is the head of the Winchester School of Art, England, while Deebi is a founding member of ArteEast, a Brooklyn-based organization that supports Middle Eastern art and culture. Both have exhibited work at the Elga Wimmer Gallery in Manhattan, and mainly work with photography. In the past, both have addressed the themes of diaspora, exile and, more broadly, Palestinian politics, unsurprising given that both artists were born inside the 1948 borders of Palestine, and have since immigrated to become citizens of other states. Currently, they are working in the globalized art world, exemplified by Massimiliano Gioni’s Central Pavilion, The Encyclopedic Palace. Nevertheless, the artists still consider themselves Palestinian, underlining the complex political identities of modernity Gioni expressed in his press conference.
