Press Kit (August 30th/31st, 2012) - Goldmann Public Relations ...

NEWTOPIA: The State of Human Rights
Contemporary Arts Exhibition in Mechelen and Brussels
01.09. – 10.12.2012
YAEL BARTANA was born in 1970 in Kfar-Yehezkel, Israel. She lives and
works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Tel Aviv, Israel.
Yael Bartana predominantly works with film and video, often staging
complex narratives that explore the imagery of cultural identity, national
politics, and dominant historical master-narratives. In her work she critically
investigates her native country's struggle for identity, but also the resonating
ghosts of the Second World War in the light of the Holocaust, Nazism, and
anti-Semitism. Her work frequently dissects ceremonies, public rituals and
social diversions that are intended to reaffirm the collective identity of
nations and countries. Her films are often staged, involving numerous
actors and extras and introduce fictive moments into real existing
narratives.
Among other prizes, Bartana was awarded the 4 th Artes Mundi Prize in
2010. Recent solo exhibitions include …and Europe will be stunned, Van
Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Polish Pavilion, 54 th Venice Biennale and
Moderna Museet, Malmö (2010/2); Mur / Wieza, Museum of Modern Art,
Warsaw (2009); Yael Bartana, P.S. 1, New York (2008); Mary Koszmary,
Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2008); Wild Seeds, The Power
Plant, Toronto (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: 7 th Berlin Biennale
(2012); L’énigme du portrait, MAC, Marseille (2011); Shockworkers
of Mobile Image, 1 st Ural Industrial Biennial, Yekaterinburg (2010); 29 th
Bienal de São Paolo (2010); Les Promesses du Passé, Centre Pompidou,
Paris (2010); Contour the 4 th Biennial of Moving Image, Mechelen (2009);
Documenta 12, Kassel (2007); 27 th Bienal de São Paulo (2006).
TAYSIR BATNIJI was born in 1966 in Gaza, Palestine. He lives and works
in Paris, France.
Taysir Batniji documents the Palestinian reality and the plight of the
Palestinian people in a physically vivid, anti-spectacular way by focusing on
displacement, intermediate states, the inhibition of movement and the
violence exercised by the IDF with a self-conscious sobriety. In his
photographic installations he depicts the effects of prohibition, exclusion,
and the perpetual monitoring and surveillance in the Occupied Territories,
while his poetic, suggestive drawings, on the other hand symbolically allude
to the difficulties faced in daily life in terms of access to resources and
goods. These issues are part and parcel of the social, political and cultural
context in Palestine and also reflect the position of the artist as a witness
and critic of this reality, through a self-consciously ‘objective’ gaze.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Le monde n'est pas arriveé, Eric Dupont
Gallery, Paris (2011); Mobil Home, Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg (2010);
Centre Culturel Francais, Alger (2009) and Musée d'Art et d'Histoire,
Geneva (2007). Recent group exhibitions include: Making History, Zollamt,
Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2012); Untitled, 12 th
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