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Last winter we were all
witness to an art scandal. An Israeli ambassador’s attack on the installation Snow
White and the Madness of Truth quickly became a world event that took on a
life of its own. At the height of the controversy, Google yielded 128,000 hits
related to it. Now the media coverage has faded away and the ambassador has
long returned home. In an unusually frank and thoughtful look back, Gunilla
Sköld Feiler, one of the two artists involved, recaps and interprets what
happened.
Now that the dust has settled
over the Rose Garden of the Museum of National Antiquities, which once
glittered in newspapers and on television screens around the world after the
Israeli ambassador’s tantrum, everything is apparently back to normal. The only
gleam is coming from the roses. So what was really going on during those short,
turbulent weeks? What happened to public debate, truth and madness as the
installation’s creators found themselves at the epicenter of the storm, as the
furor peaked and contemporary art was on everyone's lips? My immediate
experience was that of witnessing a constant barrage – attacks on freedom of
expression, on the intent of the installation, on any and all resistance to the
dictates of obedience and silence. The techniques varied but they all exhibited
the same arrogant logic: coercion and slander; threats to kill the museum’s
management, critics, our friends in Israel, our families and us; and threats to
bomb the museum.
Before 2000, it was relatively
easy to characterize a suicide bomber. The standard profile was of a young
unmarried man, poorly educated, unemployed, fanatically religious and lacking a
future. Now we might just as easily be talking about a 47-year-old father of
eight or a law graduate who happens to be a woman. It goes without saying that
life in Israel reflects such developments. Each visit to the country makes us
more aware of the peril. It can strike at any time and any place. But we also
know that Israel is indiscriminately killing innocent civilians day by day in
the Occupied Territories. The figures speak for themselves. According to a
recent survey by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, one out of every
four Palestinian boys under 18 want to be martyrs, 97% of the children suffer
from post-traumatic stress syndrome and 60% have been present when a family
member was shot to death or wounded.
”There was the terrorist wearing her perfect makeup”[i]. When I heard the ambassador refer
to the suicide bomber’s makeup as he justified his attack on Snow White and
the Madness of Truth, I flashed on Holocaust historian Christopher
Browning. The Nazis in his books aren’t cruel fanatics, but run-of-the-mill
people who have changed somewhere along the way. Understanding that dynamic
isn’t the same thing as mitigating, excusing or acquiescing to evil. On the
contrary, the horror is that much greater for its sheer banality, stripped of
its cryptic mask to reveal a sentient being capable of distinguishing between
right and wrong. It might be rather disconcerting to recall that the Nazis were
Europeans and the Palestinians aren’t. Because “run-of-the-mill people,” with
all that term implies, is hardly the label that the world currently pins on
suicide bombers.
Seeking the causes of political rage and contextualizing terrorism has
become politically unacceptable and morally inadmissible. Doing so could turn
”them” (Palestinians, Chechens, Tamils) into people like us, whose actions may
appear logical, understandable and – even worse – trivial. So we issue shrill
warnings to make sure that it won’t happen. We associate words like
”explain, understand, excuse, encourage” with a treacherous and slippery
descent into chaos. Since nobody can navigate such territory with any degree of
assurance, why be so foolhardy as to even try?
Fully conscious of that taboo, we sought to describe the contours of the
enigma – terrorism and suicide bombers – that everyone is wrestling with today
without trying to serve up unequivocal, all-embracing explanations. The world
increasingly presents itself to us as polarized into “civilization” and a
“barbarism” characterized by the pure, unadulterated evil of fairy tales. The
atmosphere is both frighteningly new and hauntingly familiar. Love and hatred,
good and evil are chiseled into archetypal features, as in old statues of
heroes.
We wanted to avoid the preaching and oversimplifications that simply
confirm what we’ve already been taught – a monster is a monster, unfathomable
and definitely not like us. Such attitudes serve only to demonize the enemy,
absolve ourselves of any responsibility and preserve the status quo. Instead we
sought to highlight ”the open wound”2
that Steve Sem-Sandberg, quoting Birgitta Trotzig, so perceptively spoke of in
the Swedish press. Our goal wasn’t to cling to trauma but to wade further out. Art can
touch nerves that are beyond the grasp of newspaper articles and documentaries,
however important and compelling they may be. Its symbols can assume multiple
roles in a simultaneous interplay of double exposures and skirmishes.
We realized that an explanatory model based on rational politics,
irrational desperation or mystical death worship could never come anywhere near
the essence of a deed, the inexorability of which is always elusive. That
ultimate incomprehensibility must be safeguarded in order to keep the wound
open and elicit the observer’s innermost images, the ones that often are the
strongest and most difficult to ward off. Because the living faces of the
victims will never return.
A sudden need to look at things in a new way can bring our conceptual
shortcomings to light. Our categories and discursive systems fall short – we
are caught by surprise and dumbfounded or reflexively cocksure. Those are very
human reactions, even if they don’t have to go so far as at the opening of Making
Differences, where the ambassador subverted freedom of expression and
ultimately appropriated the installation for his own purposes. Mazel’s
”interactive exploit” was both a reflection and an amplification of the tragic,
violent elements in the work itself. As suggested by his subsequent interviews,
one purpose of the attack was to draw attention to art’s autonomy and “exaggerated
freedom, especially in Sweden”.3 Even art’s
practitioners are questioning its sacrosanct status within four walls, a
territory reserved for inoffensive playfulness or provocation. Now the walls
crumbled and politicians around the world were up in arms. So the originators
of the installation became two more observers of the ambassador’s performance –
authentic or not (he told both the Swedish and international press that he had
made up his mind even before seeing it) – and actors on the political stage. In
other words, the line was crossed whichever direction you were heading.
Regardless of your point of view, it’s difficult to look at the piece now
without broadening its context to include all the events surrounding Mazel’s
action. The boundary between art and reality was blurred, and a new work burst
into the spotlight.
What happens when a work of art is overexposed and perused beyond the
point that it is normally designed to bear, when it ”comes in from the cold” in
an unexpected, almost arrogant way and commands everyone's attention? Many
ground rules were broken in the wink of an eye, and not only overtly political
ones – the focus of the exhibit was supposed to be on more established and
internationally famed artists. Now they were cast unfairly and pitilessly into
the background. According to rumors launched by some of “Israel’s supporters,”
it was a coup by the Feilers, whereas the more level-headed majority viewed it
as a coup by Mazel. The event quickly became a hot topic, reported and
discussed in arts and entertainment sections of newspapers, letters to the
editor and nightly news shows. All facets of the controversy, unattractive as
well as attractive, glittered away for all to see. Because everyone wanted to
have a say – from those who hate installations or any kind of art and are
prepared to molest it, to diehard “Israel supporters” willing to go down with
the ship. Then there were those who suddenly didn’t know which side of the
fence to sit on when art truly enters the realm of politics. Of course, the
entire issue stemmed from a long, complicated Middle East conflict directly
related to Europe’s historical mainstream and conscience, rather than a
distant, forgotten genocidal war in the developing world – which is important
to report on for that very reason but not as controversial.
All credit to the pundits and
critics who bravely and factually defended freedom of expression. But as often
happens when art is attacked, the substance of their arguments and the
fundamental issue suffered under the perceived need to mount such a defense. So
freedom of expression frequently has a hollow ring to it just when it’s needed
most. Given the controversy that swirled around the exhibit, it was virtually
impossible to seek any kind of objective meaning in the installation,
especially since it could pose headaches and demand a reckoning with political,
ethical and philosophical questions than are fairly rare in the art world. So
an unfortunate, uneasy atmosphere gathered around the piece: was it political
or not, was it an intentional provocation, was it a coup – and was it even art
in the first place? Actually it was a dream come true – to take an unassuming,
almost puerile installation ”that could have been put together at my children’s
nursery school”6 and bring
matters to such a head. The nature of the discussion suggested that a flanking
movement was under way at a safe distance from the installation itself.
Might that explain why virtually
all news reporting ignored the installation’s complete title? Too often to be a
coincidence, they called it “Snow White” and nothing else, as if “The Madness
of Truth” had little to convey. That was a paradox in itself, considering that
the piece contained various textual layers laced with evocative interpolations
and clearly stressed the importance of the words. Were the papers just trying
to save space? In that case, they might write ”Remembrance of Things Past” as
”Remembrance.” Didn’t the piece deserve its complete title, especially since it
had been so politicized, criticized and disseminated – like your everyday soap
opera. At least in presentations and serious forums, the ground rules should
have been adhered to: show ordinary respect for the name of a work. Why
encourage the forces that wanted nothing more than to ossify, simplify and
distort the debate? Could it be that as soon as art seeps outside the inner
circles, becomes everyone’s business and scores attendance records, it is fair
game for the media, which can mold it any which way?
A Cruel and Frozen Scene
I’m breaking the unwritten rule that
a work of art should speak for itself and under no circumstances be subject to
explanation by its originator. Something that was starting to be called ”the
art event of the century” probably demands such a transgression. My purpose isn’t to insist on a single
”correct” interpretation, but to illuminate the piece’s various structural
elements, suggest the complexities involved and somehow recreate it through the
description of its internal process. You can’t just assert that something is
complex – you have to actually prove it.
The various
components of the polyphonic, “rather unassuming” structure were all charged
with connotations. As in all intricate art, neglecting one element affects the
entire interpretation. In a hybrid based on the relationship of word, image and
music, the suggestive, linear structure of the text is quintessentially
contrasted with the confrontation between the eye and the piece itself. The
objective of the temporal dimension and movement of the text and sound was to
reinforce the imagistic stagnancy of the stronger visual elements.
The intentional out-of-doors location in the paved Rose Garden – a
choice that bordered on a cruel and frozen theatre of the real – was one of the
decisive ingredients that the press routinely ignored. Cold and horror were at
one end of the scale, heat and blood at the other: simple but not simplistic,
thought provoking but something more. Or to put it more bluntly – it was a
spartan work of art about a spartan way to wage war, lean as a scalpel. Because
we weren’t trying to impress anyone with expensive, virtual high-tech
manipulations that filter and establish distance as sanctioned by the current
international discourse. We settled instead on a pungently authentic and
austere low-tech chilliness that made the ambassador recoil in horror: ”I felt
myself freeze suddenly.” 7. He doesn’t
appear to have considered the possibility that his discomfort was rational in
the face of a tragic, gruesome depiction. Shivering and shuddering are related
bodily reactions, a sign that the artists effectively conveyed their intentions
and devices.
Simply put, it wasn’t a place for exchanging
pleasantries – particularly since it was outdoors in the middle of winter and
was part of an exhibit linked to Stockholm’s Genocide Conference. The piece
courted the senses, the body, a venue for pain – when horror freezes blood in
the veins, where we are alone and nevertheless together, where shared humanity
begins. The image of a suicide bomber could not be allowed to degenerate into a
titillating logotype. Rather we felt that it had to be placed in a context of
challenge and confrontation – it had to make a difference. So how could
the chilliness be transmitted to the TV screen and newspaper page? And what if it wasn’t even mentioned or
described? The authenticity of the translation from one medium to another was
also an issue. That was illustrated by the media’s own shortcomings. Foreign
newspapers, including those in Israel, placed the installation indoors out of
habit and totally ignored the climactic factor. Of course, not everyone has
grown up in a land of cold, dark winters. The misunderstanding was accentuated
by photographs that focused greedily on the boat so that it grew to the size of
a ship and dominated the scene without any relationship to the setting and the
cold. It was an excellent illustration of how the media create reality and even
art.
The courtyard was soon
covered with snow as we had hoped for, and the boat– moored in the
hallucinations of its own faith without going anywhere – shivered and grew
redder. The words of Bach’s Cantata 199 came to mind: ”My heart swims in blood
since in God's holy eyes, the multitude of my sins makes me a monster… My
withered heart will in the future be moistened by no comfort and I must conceal
myself from him before whom the angels themselves conceal their faces.”8 There is no forgiveness here – only
sinfulness, shame, and horror. In stark contrast to the snow, the rearranged
first aria poured time and again out of two black speakers.
That the mournful
cantata sounded beautiful9 in the
ambassador’s ears highlights the subservient role that background effects have
come to play, particularly in art, as well as widespread ignorance about
classical music. That may be an indication that it’s necessary to listen to art
as well. But then time must be permitted to act on the observer’s
sensibilities, even if she is cold – something that is easily forgotten in an
age of fleeting impressions and glossy spectacles.
We placed the spotlight so as to
heighten the sense that the scene of a recent crime was under investigation.
The ambassador reinforced that atmosphere by pulling out the cords and throwing
the spotlight into the water, interrupting the pumping system that circulated
the “blood,” as a result of which it all froze on the bottom and had to be
chipped away the following day. Also revealing is that the spotlight, which
marked the line between art and reality, was the target of the attack. The
installation and the entire museum remained under tight security for the
remainder of the exhibit, highlighting the uncompromising aspects of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as the gap between the real world and the
conference’s theme of reconciliation.
Beauty and Evil
”To look the enemy in the eye
is taboo in Israel[ii],
wrote Israeli poet and author Yitzhak Laor in Haaretz, describing the
Stockholm events. In other words, the need to meet the enemy’s glance, if only
in a picture, is enough to infuriate an ambassador. The only proper
representation of your foe – the one that enables and justifies war – is that
of evil personified without a human face. And what if your enemy is beautiful?
That the ”monster” (the
perpetrator) was an attractive Middle Eastern woman is a shattering, decisive
psychological factor from both a gender and epistemological point of view. The
stolid senses are put to the test. Associated with victimhood and weakness,
women are to be spared in wartime. So the ambassador had great difficulty with
a malefactor who wore kajal and lipstick, a femme fatale in the most
devastating sense of the word. Despite the installation text (taken directly
from a Haaretz article) that referred to Jaradat as “seemingly innocent
with universal non-violent character,” she spared nobody. Nor did we sidestep
that fact, in either word or image. Like any vain young woman, she had made
herself up for her passport photo. We found the full-page picture in a brightly
colored Israeli newspaper to which we subscribe. There she is, smiling demurely
like one of Christopher Browning’s ordinary people. ”It’s indecent!” exclaim
the respectable citizens and refuse to surrender or delve beneath the surface,
lingering dutifully, seduced or indifferent, before the sovereignty of the
image. But why get stuck there? Why not allow the deed’s horror and
incomprehensibility to cast a shadow over the entire scene, from beautiful icon
to beast, if that’s what you want? Or why not view it as a double exposure:
beauty and the beast in the same ”seemingly innocent” shape, and maybe even the
form of a human being, though ”made up”? Developing the ability to see it both
ways at the same time neither belittles nor mitigates the horror – quite the
contrary. As every art student learns right off, contrast accentuates. The
photo contains an apparent taboo. According to various Israeli news reports,
the artists made up, touched up and painted Jaradat’s lips to elicit a kind of
Christian saint who would prepare the way for Jesus10. You might be tempted to ask
which Christian saints wore red lipstick. On the other hand, we trimmed the
scanned picture down to an oval shape as in an old scrapbook. If the image
strikes the observer as beautiful, that comes from her encounter with its
motif.
And who ever said that beauty is equivalent to
virtue? Or ugliness to evil? Haven’t we gone beyond our Disneylike innocence? Take Osama bin Laden’s lofty,
Christlike smile. It’s true that image and vision form a deceptive and
sometimes dangerously symbiosis, abounding with culturally tainted layers and
traps, never neutral. So you need to be on your guard if you don’t want to get
lost. Because wasn’t the dark oval around Jaradat’s head a voided halo and
thereby the negation of a genuine icon?
Text and Context
The
text that accompanied the installation was located outdoors along with the rest
of it. It was composed of intertwined narratives, visually and stylistically
distinct, taken from two different sources. The layer based on the real world
consisted of translated excerpts from Israeli reports on the course of events
preceding the suicide bombing. Since they had all been published in the Israeli
press, they were neither the “thoughts of the artists” 11 nor “the daily message spewed
out by the Palestinian Authority’s propaganda machine”12 as has been spitefully
maintained. Furthermore, the excerpts were italicized to emphasize that they
had been taken from other sources. Important to keep in mind is that, driven by
its survival instinct, the Israeli peace camp frequently examines the
relationship of violence, oppression and Palestinian suffering to suicide
bombings that target Israelis. Thus, the Israeli press will sometimes recount
the life of the perpetrator during the period leading up to the attack. That is
usually followed by a bitter vilification campaign on the part of the peace camp’s opponents – something that
we got only a small taste of.
The other layer consisted of
liberally rearranged passages from the story of Snow White that touch on the
eternal questions of guilt, innocence, desire, abandonment, despair and
obsession. Its childishly red calligraphy distanced it from the news stories,
strengthening its stylized, naive and fantastic character. That illuminated the perilously thin
boundaries between fact and fiction, myth and reality, that run through our
increasingly media-oriented worldview. With a few rare exceptions,
reproductions of the text in the media ignored that distinction and departed
from the original typeset. However benign the intentions, the effect was
greater confusion and misinformation. In other words, the imagistic and
integrative aspects of the text have escaped public notice. The collage
structure invited the spectator to read in a manner other than the traditional
linear approach suitable for newspapers. Even though the installation made it
clear that Jaradat was unmarried and childless, a number of critics promulgated
the misconception that she had two children and that her husband had been
killed.
Colors
The recurrence of red, white and
black in both the text and the rest of the installation stressed that not even
the archetype of Snow White is monochromatic, but “red as blood and black as
ebony." Although metaphors and archetypes from old myths can grow trite,
they rejuvenate themselves by constantly acquiring new contexts and meanings.
Snow White represents an equivocal, deluded and ultimately dangerous psychic
state that has crystallized its faith in the purity and nobility of one’s own
family, nation or God. Since multiple layers of complex feelings and symbols
are involved, interpreting the installation ironically may be misleading. A
recent scandal in Sweden also involved an ”innocent young girl” who was drawn
into a violent intrigue by means of religious programming that used the
individual and collective tools of ostracism, humiliation and submission. Was
she less guilty just because we know how it came about? And why are we so
afraid of thinking clearly when terrorism is involved? Do we shrink in alarm
that our worldview will be jolted?
The Ku Klux Klan’s
robes – or the horse that the preacher, the “wolf in sheep's clothing,” rides
in the poetic and horrifying film The Night of the Hunter – also
illustrate the frightening import of white. And don’t forget that, just like
black, white is the color of death. Playing on Snow White’s equivocally scarlet
lips, red embraces both love and hatred and makes us human – but it also
reveals our brutishness, as expressed in the Bach cantata and the text "the
wild beast will soon have swallowed you." At the risk of sounding
didactic in offering the above examples, I want to emphasize that the basic
symbolism of the old folk tale is neither remarkable nor particularly original,
but generally accepted. But given the misinterpretations and falsehoods that
gained currency during the exhibit, there is good reason to discuss the myth.
References were made to Walt Disney, as well as to Snow White “as a Lutheran
symbol hung on the Christmas tree”13 and a sign of “the new
nihilism in a godless Europe”14. Such interpretations were
rendered by people with narrow, anxious perspectives who wrote in newspapers
and magazines despite their not having seen the installation. At least you
can’t accuse them of lacking imagination.
One unintentional
and completely ignored detail was the dying water sprite, his neck broken, on
the embankment. Not to mention the ladder that leaned up against a barren tree,
which offered neither escape nor shelter.
Symbolism and Interpretation
The observer must accept
ultimate responsibility for his or her own interpretation of a work. All art
besides political propaganda invites various exegeses and responses, none of
which can be called the correct one. But some may simply be wrong.
There is an
abundance of evidence that the installation’s allegory and banal but baleful
symbols had the desired effect. Art critic Roberta Smith wrote in the New
York Times: “The work’s title, ‘Snow White and the Madness of Truth,’
suggests a suicide bomber as a person driven by fairy-tale simplicity and
pathological faith. It implies that such faith and simplicity have caused bloodshed
all over the world, not just in Israel»15.
Here she is touching on Snow White as a pathological, infantile and fatal
psychic state that can drive a person or a nation to the edge of the
unthinkable.
So what did Mazel say? In order to
take his interpretation seriously and examine its assumptions, it might prove
helpful to place the concept of blood within the ideological context from which
he is coming. The metaphor of blood has played a central and venerable role in
Israel, both in ancient and modern times. In the 20th century, the metaphor has
achieved its greatest prominence in the propaganda of the Israeli right,
nourished by seemingly endless wars and the roller coaster ride from the flush
of victory to devastating losses. Such symbolism is far removed from Sweden's
national discourse, making Mazel's interpretation totally incomprehensible to
most of the country’s citizens. “'With blood and sweat we shall erect our
race…in blood and fire Judah fell, in blood and fire Judah will rise.” Ze'ev
Jabotinsky (1880-1940), founder of Revisionist Zionism (precursor of the Likud
Party) and key ideologue of the Israeli right, uttered those famous words.
Thus, blood presumably symbolizes for Mazel the sense of honor and heroic
struggle that repudiates art and recoils before the specter of its own murdered
innocence. But the installation’s blood has other implications that are alien
to Mazel's worldview – the blind spot that led to the deaths of 13 (including
her brother, fiancé and cousin) of Jaradat's relatives in clashes with the
forces of occupation. Blood has no face, no skin color. It mixes well. Our red
blood cells are unique in that they lose their nuclei and DNA when they mature.
In the age of science, blood more appropriately symbolizes our common humanity
than narrow kinship bonds or secret rituals. But the rhetoric has been
frighteningly effective both on the battlefield and in nationalistic projects –
blood and its scarlet imagery have been powerful conveyors of meaning and
inspiration.
The Physical Setting
Important to keep in mind is
that Making Differences had a specific location and context and was not
some kind of free-floating exhibit. The setting was a history museum with
memories and remnants that illuminate and highlight the past. And that history
is thoroughly violent. Thus, the process of fact finding must be eternally
vigilant in seeking the roots of war and genocide in Judeo-Christian
civilization – as far back as the Bible's tales of sacrifice and revenge. Even suicide
– the most extreme manifestation of free will – finds early expression in the
story of Samson. ”Let me die with the Philistines,” he roared as he destroyed
the temple while three thousand of the enemy’s men and women stood on the roof.
The deed was revenge for the torture and humiliation he had suffered in
captivity. As a mythical and respected war hero, Samson’s fate should confront
us with a number of painful questions.
So although Snow White and the Madness of Truth is both an old
and new story, it might seem strangely pathetic to a country that hasn't
experienced war for two hundred years. The discourse of violence and vendetta
is as far as you can imagine from the
Swedish ideal of blondness and
elegant design. The ethical and substantive boundaries of national discourses
are crossed when contemporary art becomes cosmopolitan and takes on diverse,
culturally specific ingredients. That could explain why today’s exhibits –
whether in Turkey, Sweden or Israel – tend to feature "consensus art"
adapted to the current international discourse and amenable to non-threatening
interpretations even when ostensibly political in nature.
So not everyone associates the paradoxical claims of “truth, snow white
and madness” with the more equivocal concepts of snow blind, white lie and
white noise. Take snow white. The visually impaired have great difficulty in
snowy surroundings – they lose their sense of direction, are less able to probe
with their canes and are disoriented by the muffled sounds. People who live in cold climates can identify
with that plight even if they have normal vision. Thus, art will always embrace
culturally specific elements and contexts. Transferring a work from its place
of origin to the other side of the globe can be an exciting and enriching
enterprise. But it can also be risky, and even devastating, if the piece is
deconstructed and viewed from new, distorted perspectives.
Paranoia and Recreating the Installation
Finding yourself in the eye of the
storm and encountering a new work of art designed by Zvi Mazel and Ariel Sharon
was something like being in a Woody Allen film – if a little on the horror side
– when the protagonist is at her most paranoid and is fully convinced that the
world revolves around her. When CNN, BBC and hundreds of other news channels
around the world showed the Israeli prime minister calling his Sunday morning
Cabinet meeting to order with the discussion of a fairy tale figure, maybe the
“truth of madness” would have been a better title than the “madness of
truth.”
So did Mazel, the newly born artist, succeed in his attempt? Not really,
given that the installation was allowed to remain in place even after the
Christian Democratic Youth League reported it to the police for incitement to
racial hatred and allegations were made that it was a death trap and source of
environmental toxins (water samples failed to substantiate the claims). To the
dismay of some, it also scored attendance records – some 30,000 visitors in
three weeks. On the other hand, voices were raised here and there to the effect
that the ambassador’s actions were fully understandable and effective in that
they “forced Swedes to empathize with the Israeli trauma provoked by suicide
bombers.”16 But the hysteria
that was evoked in Israel and trumpeted to the rest of the world came from
another source, the origin of which was Mazel’s attack – planned or not – and
the specious maneuvering that sought to exonerate and shroud it.
With the ambassador’s
encouragement, the tragic narrative of the breakdown of dialog and its
unforeseeable consequences proceeded apace. So the reaction of Israelis to ”the
work of two antisemitic artists that urged on and paid tribute to suicide
bombers and genocide against the Jews"17 wasn't particularly
difficult to understand. Both Mazel and the Israeli Cabinet described the work
in those terms while praising his "heroic deed.”18 The installation
was also interpreted as the sign of "an impending new Kristallnacht since it appeared at a history museum in Sweden”19. And we felt for those misled
people, whose wounds were so cynically reopened by that distorted
interpretation. Those who so zealously attacked the installation must have
realized that they were creating a sense of hysteria in a traumatized people
who had no opportunity to judge the work on their own. “We’re at war,”
explained Mazel afterwards. According to the logic of war, you have to defend
yourself (go on the offensive) and seize the weapons at hand, whether it be in
Gaza or at an art exhibit.
Looking back at history, the "inherited paranoia" that Jews
often speak of themselves remains a very real phenomenon that deserves neither
scorn nor rejection. Since that kind of paranoia makes it difficult to
criticize Israeli policy without being accused of anti-Semitism and poses a
serious threat to dialog and peace, it has frequently been a topic of
discussion in Israel. Putting such criticism off limits would not only be
devastating for the future of the Palestinians, but represent a tragedy for the
Israelis themselves and ultimately world Jewry. Thus, illuminating the issue of
paranoia isn’t harmful, but absolutely necessary. As clearly reflected in Mazel’s thinking and
actions, many – perhaps most – Jews and Israelis see themselves as victims in
the Middle East conflict way beyond what the facts of the matter would suggest.
Almost overnight, two artists became fair game. One of them – a Jew,
native Israeli and well-known peace activist – was called “Israel’s number one
enemy in Europe”20. Other
Jews were urged “not to have anything to do with him”21. The results of that smear
campaign were soon evident. Meanwhile, the enormous media coverage gave us
little time at first to protect ourselves from the storm that was gathering –
it was important not to underestimate the dangerous forces that had been
unleashed.
Now that we have survived the harrowing experience, it seems clear that
artists who are the targets of such threats should have recourse to a support
network comparable to International PEN for writers. Acts of vandalism against
art, along with censorship and police raids, has grown alarmingly in countries
like Sweden, Russia, Italy, the United States and Israel. Given the global
nature of today’s art scene, there will presumably be an ever greater need for
such a support network. Because if we
are earnest about defending the political content of contemporary art,
collisions with vested interests will be difficult to avoid. Exhibits and
biennials will play an increasing role as vehicles and symbols of freedom and
progress, particularly in less stable and democratic countries. Expecting
artists to represent certainty in a world that is becoming less certain by the
day would be an absurd proposition.
The vendetta theme has recently hit
the silver screen as well, often with women as the chief avengers. Because how
should we interpret the Cinderella-like and submissive Grace in Lars von
Trier's Dogville? The film confronts the limitless violence that the
vast entertainment industry spoon feeds us daily without asking us to look at
its reality. With an ostensibly simple plot and an elaborate, stylized and
low-key narrative, von Trier demands that we face up to that encounter. At the
end of the film, all ”grace" has vanished and we are left with the
inexorable, unanswered questions of guilt and innocence, individual and
collective responsibility. Then there’s Patty Jenkins’ true-life film Monster
in which the tattered existence of a serial murderess becomes cause and effect
in a vicious cycle without excusing her deeds in any way. The theme also
appears, though in a more extreme and amoral form, in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill
Bill (Volume 1 and 2). But the vengeance motif drowns in the splatter of
blood, conveniently sparing us from confronting any kind of political reality.
Some people argue that as modern
judicial systems repress and appropriate the instinct of vengeance, it emerges
in art and entertainment instead. Others maintain that such films reflect the
pathological state of a society in which we are all vulnerable to the swoop of
terror just when we least expect it. If the real world is increasingly reduced
to day-by-day media warfare, the consequent wounds will eventually spew forth
the most frightening scenarios– if only as whispers and echoes on the screen,
or as escapist paroxysms of blood that momentarily shock and titillate at best.
From that point of view, it is particularly perplexing that images of real-life
cruelty immediately remind us of “fearful contemporary art” or medieval covens.
A Hydra
Snow White and the
Madness of Truth, starring an enraged ambassador, was played out on the world stage. It
lives on as a catalyst and watershed despite efforts to efface it. We feared
that the attack would boil the whole thing down to a single issue. Empathy,
openness and vulnerability were at risk when the observer was no longer free to
pose his or her own questions, but had them served up on a platter – not an
ideal starting point. But you can’t kill art with the slash of a sword – like
the Hydra, it’s liable to sprout a head or two for every one that's severed.
The picture has grown clearer despite
the fact that the pool is now empty and the snow melted. The interplay of
events exposed power structures and mechanisms at the highest levels of
diplomacy, not to mention contemporary art. And a lot more was going on behind
the scenes: smear campaigns, political hanky-panky, lobbying efforts and clique
formation. Media coverage was impossible
to keep track of – there were some 128,000 hits on Google at one point. The
Hydra’s new heads spawned dialog and debate about political art in newspapers,
art journals and seminars in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Israel, the
United States, Canada and elsewhere.
Recent Israeli discussion has
centered on dissemination of art within and outside of the discourse approved
by the nation and establishment, as well as its consequences for crises like
the present one. With growing uneasiness, Israeli artists have followed
portents of censure and other restrictions on the freedom of expression.22 As a result, 85 well-known
Israeli artists joined a spring exhibit at Military Prison No. 6 (where
refuseniks are serving time) under the mottos “Artists also have to take
action” and “Israeli art should be in prison”23. At the same time, they
started an organization called “Artists Without Borders.”
The name of the organization suggests
the growing necessity in Sweden, Israel and worldwide of cosmopolitan art that
is international in scope without being bland and cultureless. Such art would reveal the contemporary
landscape, its topography, barriers and boundaries, refuting the notion that
they don’t exist or that they trace certain stereotypical contours. There’s so
much out there to discover – especially where we are right at the moment.
“There was
the terrorist wearing her perfect makeup.” »
Epilogue
Six months after Snow White
and the Madness of Truth attracted so much attention, two new works – both
by women – on the subject of suicide bombers were exhibited in Israel. The
Haifa Museum of Art showed Dganit Brest’s photograph of a suicide bomber who
blew herself up at a Tel Aviv shopping center. Taken from a newspaper, the
photo was enlarged and placed in a context of "despair and death."
During the public debate that accompanied the exhibit, museum curator
Nissim Tal explained to the public that “Grief, at the center of the public
consensus, is one of the taboos of Israeli society. The use of the portrait, in
an exhibit that invokes death in various ways, intensified the emotional turmoil.”
According to Dr. Ilan Saban of the Haifa University Law Department, “It is hard
for me to understand how you see this as a glorification, you should have no
fears regarding how most of us look at the picture. We all look at it
from a place of fearing death.” Palestinian-Israeli artist Nisreen Mazawi
exhibited six photos of potential suicide bombers, freshly showered and barely
dry ("since Palestinians are viewed as dirty") at Ramat Gan Museum.
In another connection, Mazawi did a portrait of herself as a terrorist. [iii]
Gunilla
Sköld Feiler
2 Steve
Sem-Sandberg, Svenska Dagbladet, January 20, 2004.
3 Interview with Zvi
Mazel in K-special film, ”Who’s Afraid of Art”.
5 Rumors spread by
”supporters of Israel.”
6 Staffan Heimersson,
Aftonbladet, January 24, 2004.
7 Interview with Zvi
Mazel in K-special film, ”Who’s Afraid of Art”.
8 The original German goes: “Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut/ Weil mich der Sünden
Brut/ In Gottes heilgen Augen/ Zum Ungeheuer macht […] Mein ausgedorrtes Herz /
Will ferner mehr kein Trost befeuchten / Und Ich muss mich vor dem verstecken /
Vor dem die Engel selbst ihr Angesicht verdecken“
9 Remarks by Zvi
Mazel on Swedish television after the attack concerning the “beautiful music from the loud speakers.”
10 Dana Gillermans, art critic, refers to Tchelet's article ”Israeli Thinking”
and Daniel
Doneson's article on the installation that, according to him, carried obvious
Lutheran symbolism, including Snow White on the Christmas tree.
11 Daniel Doneson, Tchelet “Israeli
Thinking” no.
17 – 2004, Israel.
13 Daniel Doneson, Tchelet “Israeli Thinking ” no. 17 – 2004, Israel.
14 Daniel
Doneson, Tchelet “Israeli Thinking ” no. 17 – 2004, Israel.
15 New York Times, May 13, 2004.
16 Anders Carlberg, Göteborgs-Posten,
January 20, 2004.
17 Zvi Mazel, Gunnar Hökmark, (president of
Sverige-Israel-förbundet) Expressen, January 19, 2004. Ariel Sharon in the
Israeli press.
18 Ariel Sharon in the Israeli press.
19 Cornelia Edvardson, Svenska
Dagbladet, on the official interpretation in Israel.
20 Remarks of Zvi Mazel on Israeli
television.
21 Letter from Jewish congregation in
Göteborg to its members.
IDF police
invaded a photo exhibit that documented violence and abuse of Palestinians in
Hebron (Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent: June 23, 2004). Those in charge of
the exhibit were arrested afterwards. David Wakstein’s photos at Tel Aviv
Museum have been accused of being antisemitic (Dana
Gillerman, Haaretz July 8, 2004).
23 A satellite exhibit at Candyland in
Stockholm featured some of the 85 artists from the Military Prison No. 6
project, including David Tartakover , Dganit Brest and Sigalit Landau. Dror
Feiler and Gunilla Sköld Feiler selected and compiled the photos.
24 Below are other excerpts from the
debate on Brest’s work (Dana Gillerman, Haaretz, July
8, 2004).
“A museum is a space that
facilitates investigation. It expands
self-examination and displays it."
(Dganit Brest)
“The question is should museums show the public what it wants
to see or should they dare to place issues on the public agenda.” (Larry Abramson, artist)
“ …an encouraging sign that art has been restored as a
subject of public debate. Art may once again be more than a place
in which to create beauty , and may dare again to deal with sensitive subjects
that create public turmoil…” (Dana Gillerman, art critic)
“David Tartakover closed the discussion by saying,
“Freedom of expression is not just the right to express accepted opinions, but
also those that repulse the majority of the public.” (Israel
Prize Laureate)
Internet links to the sources used in the installation text.
Ticking bomb by Vered Levy Barsilai – Haaretz October 14, 2003.
Haaretz, Jaradat article – Hebrew version
Female Suicide Bombers for God, by Yoram Schweitzer,
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies
When despair trumps hope, by Ruth Rosen, San Francisco
Chronicle – October 13, 2003
