Artes Mundi's blog

How Changed is Poland?

By Katherine Bujalska, Artes Mundi Live Guide

During the last few weeks, the exhibition has had quite a few young Polish visitors and where possible, I have grabbed them for a quick reflection on two of Yael Bartana’s films ‘Mary Koszmary’ and ‘Wall and Tower’. Last week I led a group of ESOL students around the show, four of whom were Polish, so had the chance to grill them in more depth.

The overriding response appeared to be that the films did not consider Poland’s current state - that it is not as it was in the 1930s when so many Jews were relocated to the Middle East. I don’t know what Poland is like today but the only real indication we could find in ‘Mary Koszmary’ were glimpses of the activities of market traders around the rim of the ‘Stadion Dziesiecioleca’. These people are mostly immigrants to the country.

Yael Bartana is not attempting to offer up a real solution to the issue of a Jewish homeland with this film. She unravels any supposition of this in part 2 of the trilogy, ‘Wall and Tower’ where the small contingent of Jews shown settling in Warsaw do so in a structure seemingly designed to prevent integration.

My own father grew up in Poland and the lasting sentiment he held of his early childhood (during the early 1940s) was that Jewish culture was synonymous with Polish culture. Mine is a second-hand account of one household within a country, but surely his was not an isolated experience? Unfortunately it is now one which cannot be directly compared to those with a contemporary experience of the newer, post-communist Poland they grew up in, but perhaps it should be. This point has been highlighted for me by these films and by the reactions of young Poles to them.

The visual references Yael Bartana employs – the recognisable Zionist film aesthetics, the red neck-tied youths, the archetypal wall and tower architecture – come from relatively recent histories. But where are the concrete visual or cultural references to the Jewish presence in Poland (or anywhere) pre-1930s? And would we recognize them anyway? I think the lack of any deeper Jewish historical reference in these films is purposeful. It reflects its absence elsewhere. I hope that people who see these films feel this neglected part of history is worth exploring.

The Great Gallery/Cinema Debate

By Ruth McLees, Artes Mundi Live Guide.

The Israeli artist Yael Bartana is one of the artists exhibiting films in this Artes Mundi exhibition. She explores Jewish-Israeli society and history, and in Wall and Tower she presents us with a scenario of the Israeli Jews, having moved back to Poland, constructing a kibbutz (a collective settlement)on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto.

During my lunchtime tour I was asked, "What makes this art? It should be shown in a cinema not a gallery. And if it is art, why wasn't Schindler's List (the film) shown in a gallery?"

Filmed as it is in a propaganda/documentary style, and presented on a single cinema-type screen with seating for the audience, I can see why reading Yael's film as an artwork may be quite challenging.

In comparison, the Bulgarian artist Ergin Cavusoglu presents his films on multiple screens arranged around the gallery. When setting up for this show he deliberately arranged the screens so as to transform the space architecturally and allow the viewers to move between and around, and so become immersed in the action. The sound is designed to change as we walk through the space. He stipulated no chairs or benches for the audience so as to avoid dictating where they must sit to experience the film. In this way he keeps away from the cinematic formula of one seat=one view, and so steers his work firmly in the direction of art as opposed to cinema.

So, is it appropriate that Yael's work is exhibited here in the gallery of National Museum Wales? Many of her films are regularly shown in film festivals in cinemas around the world, so why are they here in this gallery? Do they become art as soon as they are placed in a gallery setting? Since classical times art has served as documentary and reportage with the aim of inciting a response in the viewer; perhaps this is all that is needed for Yael Bartana's films to be successfully read as art.

Olive trees and watchtowers

By Morag Colquhoun, Artes Mundi Live Guide

The artist that seems to be getting people talking the most this week is Israeli artist Yael Bartana.

In her video Mary Koszmary (which means 'Nightmare' in Polish), a young man makes a speech in the centre of a deserted stadium in Warsaw. Addressing his words to weed infested terraces, he calls for Jews to return to Poland - the country where so many Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust. 

This is part of the artist's 'Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland' ...

What are we to make of it? Is it a spoof? Is it deadly serious?

In another video set in a Polish park, vigorous young men and women build the first physical manifestation of 'the movement': a watch tower surrounded by a wall. Does this video bring to mind the creation of Israeli Kibbutz? The idealism of socialism? Some viewers have also been reminded of concentration camps.

 
Yael Bartana

Mur i Wieża (Wall and Tower) - 2009
One channel RED transfer to 35mm film  Duration: 16 min.
Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery Amsterdam

Some strong reactions to this work have come from viewers who have had direct experiences that they could relate to the work. 

One young man had met many Israelis while travelling around the world. He told me that he hated 'Zionism'. At the same time, he was unsettled by the work as it seemed to propose a forced solution to the problems and conflict that surround the state of Israel.

Another viewer had been present during the establishment of the state of Israel, as part of the occupying British Army force. He had supported the foundation of Israel but only on condition that the Palestinian people received equal treatment, an equality he felt they had not yet received. When I spoke to him he had not yet seen Yael Bartana's other video work, 'A Declaration', in which a young man replaces the Israeli flag with an olive tree ... perhaps his sentiments found an echo in that work.

These conversations bring to mind a conversation that I had with another Artes Mundi artist, Adrian Paci, in which he stressed the importance of viewers' own responses.

There is no right or wrong way to view any of the Artes Mundi art works I feel but hopefully lots of interesting responses and conversations to come ...