Cohen, Mor (2020) Art Collectives in Contemporary Israel. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University. Downloaded from: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/626354/ Usage rights: Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Deriva- tive Works 4.0 Please cite the published version https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk Art Collectives in Contemporary Israel M Cohen PhD 2020 Art Collectives in Contemporary Israel Mor Cohen A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Manchester Metropolitan University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Art Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre Manchester Metropolitan University 2020 Director of Studies: Dr Simon Faulkner Manchester School of Art Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester, UK Supervisors: Dr Danielle Child Manchester School of Art Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester, UK Dr Holly Eva Ryan School of Politics and International Relations Queen Mary University of London London, UK Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the financial support of the Vice Chancellor International Scholarship programme and the Postgraduate Arts and Humanities Centre. My deepest gratitude to my supervisory team, Dr Simon Faulkner, Dr Danielle Child and Dr Holly Eva Ryan for their critical insights and invaluable guidance. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Dany Louise for her professional proofreading and editorial advices. Special thanks should also go to Lukasz Cybulski for always finding the time and patience to read through my work. During my fieldwork I had the pleasure to meet and interview talented artists and devoted activists that shared their knowledge and experience with me. I would like to thank Elad Yaron, Hadas Ophrat, Itay Shhigger Zur, Jonathan Ofrath, Matan Israeli, Meydad Eliyahi, Shlomo Vazana and Yoav Shafranek. I would also like to thank Eden Vaknin and the Garden Library team for their significant work and for allowing me to volunteer in their summer programme Last but not least, I would like to thank my family and friends for their unconditional love and support despite not always been sure of what exactly I am doing. Abstract This research examines art collectives working in Israel within the last decade. This research is currently the only in-depth study dedicated to contemporary socially engaged and collaborative art practices in Israel from the perspective of art research and political studies. It contributes to both disciplines by i) developing an interdisciplinary framework from which to analyse socially engaged and collaborative art; and ii) providing an alternative reading of contemporary Israeli art from a politically-oriented position. The motivation for conducting this research comes from the proliferation of collaborative art practices in Israel in the last decade, and especially after the 2011 Israeli protest for social justice. Within this research context I ask What is the socio-political context that has prompted the recent ‘social turn’ in Israeli art; and how artists use collaborative and socially engaged practices to initiate change within the political as well as the artistic field. To answer these questions, I adopt an interdisciplinary approach which relies on Jacques Rancière’s aesthetic regime theory and Félix Guattari’s notion of transversality. Guattari and Rancière emphasize the involvement of art with other terrains and develop an aesthetic reading on non-artistic phenomena. To examine the meanings and impacts of such involvement, I use other key concepts and models such as Gills Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of affect, Chantal Mouffe’s model of radical democracy, Sara Ahmed’s model of sociality of emotions, and Étienne Balibar’s concept of the right of residency. This theoretical toolbox enables me to closely examine the limitations and possibilities of using art as a tool to imagine more inclusive and plural ways of living together. Table of Contents Acknowledgement Abstract Table of Contents List of Figures 1. Introduction: The J14 Movement and The ‘Social Turn’ in Israeli Art..1 1.1 Jerusalem and South Tel Aviv as Sites of Alternative Art..............10 1.2 The Art Collectives: Muslala, Arteam, Empty House and Onya....16 1.2.1 Muslala............................................................................18 1.2.2 Arteam.............................................................................21 1.2.3 Empty House...................................................................24 1.2.4 Onya................................................................................28 1.3 Jacques Rancière’s Aesthetic Regime.........................................31 1.3.1 Politics as Aesthetics.......................................................33 1.3.2 The Aesthetic Regime of Art............................................41 1.4 Félix Guattari’s Aesthetic Paradigm..............................................47 1.5 Revolutionary Affects and the Power of Emotions........................52 1.5.1 Affect Theory and the Production of Subjectivities..........52 1.5.2 Emotions and Politics......................................................55 1.6 Transversality as an Aesthetic Model (Thesis Chapters)..............58 2. The Production of New Collective Subjectivities in Israel..................65 2.1 The Subjectivisation of Israeli Identities........................................67 2.1.1 The Four Tribes model....................................................67 2.1.2 The Decentralisation of the Israeli Subject and the Making of an Antagonist Society....................................75 2.2 Muslala’s The Meeting Point (2012, 2013, 2015): Pluralism and Antagonism on the Borderline..................................................80 2.2.1 Musrara – Where East and West Meet...........................87 2.2.2 Between Green and Red – a Cultural Meeting Point......87 2.2.2.1 The Architectural Plan.......................................84 2.2.2.2 The Opening Night............................................92 2.2.2.3 Between the First and the Second Between Green and Red...............................................….95 2.2.2.4 “Before We Dance Together We Need To Know How To Sit Together” (Amir, 2016)......................98 2.2.3 The Meeting Point – Under the Bridge (2015) – Between Coexistence to Co-resistance......................................104 2.3 Empty House, Kibbutz DIY (2013): The Art of Collective Labour....................................................................................109 2.3.1 The Kibbutz Is Calling You!...........................................110 2.3.2 On Totems and the Question of Critical Art...................114 2.3.3 The Art of Labour...........................................................123 2.4 Arteam, The Garden Library (2009-ongoing): Transnationlity in South Tel Aviv.........................................................................133 2.4.1 Israel’s Backyard – Neve Sha’anan Neighbourhood, South Tel Aviv..............................................................135 2.4.2 The Garden Library.......................................................141 2.4.2.1 A Library With No Walls........…,......................144 2.4.2.2 The Passion of Reading..................................147 2.4.3 Celebrating Transnationalism on the Frontier...............149 2.5 Summary……………………………………………………………..157 3. A-Centric Constellations: Musrara as a Case Study..........................163 3.1 Narrative and Counter-Narrative in the Israeli Art Discourse......166 3.1.1 The want of the matter and the Bifurcation of the Israeli- Jewish Society.............................................................166 3.1.2 A Rhizomatic Reading of Israeli Art – Routes of Wandering and Beyond...............................................177 3.1.3 Between Dialectics and The Rhizome..........................181 3.2 “Either the Cake will be Shared by All or there will be no Cake”: The Aesthetic of The Black Panthers Movement in Israel......185 3.2.1 The Black Panthers and the Distribution of the Sensible.......................................................................187 3.2.2 The Black Panthers’ Legacy in Israeli Visual Culture and Politics – Between Mainstream and Alternative...........193 3.3 Local Heterogeneities: Muslala’s The Black Panthers’ Road.....202 3.3.1 New Paths for Art..........................................................203 3.3.2 Political Collage.............................................................212 3.4 Summary……………………………………………………………..222 4. The Art of Sustaining Change..............................................................225 4.1 On the Production of Transversal Institutes................................227 4.2 Nature in the City: Ecological Art Practices in the Works of Muslala and Onya................................................................................231 4.2.1 Taking Over the ‘White Elephants’................................233 4.2.1.1 Muslala and Clal Centre..................................234 4.2.1.2 Onya and the new CBS...................................237 4.2.1.3 Building a Sustainable City..............................242 4.2.2 Art and Ecology.............................................................246 4.2.3 The Urban Pioneers – Possibilities and Limitations......252 4.3 The NGOisation of Arteam’s The Garden Library.......................263 4.3.1 Creativity and Diversity in south Tel Aviv.......................266 4.3.2 Tel Aviv Municipality and the Question of the Asylum Seekers.......................................................................274