arts

Article Fragile Traces, Treacherous Sands: Ronen Sharabani and Micha Ullman’s Intergenerational Encounter

Hava Aldouby

Department of Literature, Language, and the Arts, The Open University of Israel, Ra’anana 4353701, Israel; [email protected]



Received: 18 March 2020; Accepted: 15 June 2020; Published: 23 June 2020


Abstract: This paper addresses an intriguing intergenerational encounter between Micha Ullman (b. Tel Aviv 1939), one of Israel’s most prominent senior artists, and Ronen Sharabani (b. Tel Aviv 1974), a young media artist. The two artists’ otherwise divergent practices converge in their use of sand and red earth as their primary media. The paper brings Mieke Bal’s concept of migratory aesthetics and Jill Bennett’s phenomenological approach to trauma-related art to bear on Ullman’s fragile earth installations and perforated sand tables, and on Sharabani’s projections of Virtual Reality onto sand. Also addressed is Sharabani’s series Vitual Territories (2019), in which digitally manipulated views from Google Earth probe geographical sites that resonate with migratory histories. The paper traces two main trajectories upon which the oeuvres of Ullman and Sharabani interface. The first category, “treacherous sands”, relates to installations involving sand tables and other containers of soil. In turn, the category of “fragile traces” addresses installations that feature various architectural ground plans modeled in sand. In these installations, sand is the quintessential terra infirma. At the same time, however, the paper proposes that through the haptic appeal of the medium of sand, these installations counter the pervasive anxiety of shifting ground with an augmented sense of bodily presence.

Keywords: Micha Ullman; Ronen Sharabani; Israeli art; sand in art; earth art; immigration; migratory aesthetics; haptic; Virtual Reality

Borders and mapping, luggage and (traveling) bodies (Rogoff 2000); places of transit, such as airports and train terminals (Di Stefano 2002); sea passages (Bennett 2011); and the architectural tropes of foundation, threshold, passage, and landing (Meskimmon 2010)—have been discussed as conspicuous motifs of mobility in contemporary visual art. In this paper, I pay particular attention to sand (a term pertaining to various types of soil) as a medium of migratory aesthetics in Israeli art. I propose to do this by an analysis of an intergenerational encounter between two artists: Micha Ullman (b. Tel Aviv 1939), one of Israel’s most prominent senior artists, and Ronen Sharabani (b. Tel Aviv 1974), a young media artist working mainly in the field of Virtual Reality (henceforth VR). Despite their otherwise divergent trajectories, these artists’ practices converge in the use of sea sand and red earth as their primary media. In addressing these practices, this paper broaches the theme of radicant patterns in Israeli art through an investigation of earth (and/or sand) as both a material medium and an aesthetic trope inscribed with migratory anxiety. Ullman and Sharabani relate to sand as matter that cannot be contained within fixed boundaries, drifting across and beyond borders and thwarting the promise of firm ground. Sand, in their works, is the quintessential terra infirma, as in Rogoff’s study of “unhomed” geography (Rogoff 2000, p. 7). In what follows, I consider Ullman’s precariously balanced earth sculptures and perforated sand tables, in conjunction with Sharabani’s VR projections on sand and digitally manipulated views from Google Earth, which hone in on geographical sites that resonate with histories of Jewish migrations. In approaching the resonances between these two bodies of work, which together span over five decades, I draw on theoretical and methodological tools developed to address migratory aesthetics by Mieke Bal(2007), Jill Bennett(2005,

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2011), and Sam Durrant and Catherine Lord (Durrant and Lord 2007). I work with Bal’s definition of migratory aesthetics as “a ground for experimentation that opens up possible relations with ‘the migratory’” (Bal 2007, p. 23), and with Bennett’s assertion that “[m]ore than the sum of art works about migration, Migratory Aesthetics invokes aesthetics in the strong sense, as an epistemic project [ ... ] reorganizing affects to redetermine a perceptual landscape” (Bennett 2011, pp. 118–20). I adopt a primarily, albeit not exclusively, phenomenological approach to migratory aesthetics, investigating, in Durrant and Lord’s terms, “the degree to which the art work itself becomes migratory” (Durrant and Lord 2007, p. 13). Bennett, connecting the politics and phenomenology of contemporary aesthetics, urges us to “configur[e] the political through the aesthetic by describing the particularity of what art does” (Bennett 2011, p. 120). Developing my argument in this vein, I attend closely to the working of sand as a material medium inviting tactile engagement, while at the same time I attend to the semantic weight of this medium in terms of its connotation of shifting ground. The artworks discussed in this paper weave a migratory fabric, affording affective and somatosensory engagement through the employment of sand. In their subtle poetics, they part ways with more overtly political strains of Israeli art, such as the bitingly ironic work arising from the 1990s wave of Russian immigration to Israel, discussed by Yael Guilat and by Emma Gashinsky in this issue. In Bennett’s terms, Ullman and Sharabani do not speak through politically explicit “trauma discourse” (Bennett 2005, p. 2). Rather, their art evinces an “endeavor to find a communicable language of sensation and affect with which to register something of the experience of traumatic memory” (ibid., p. 2). Whereas Nicolas Bourriaud’s (2010) concept of radicant aesthetics assumes some kind of metaphorically solid ground, supporting meandering rootings, I show how Ullman and Sharabani question this very assumption. The intergenerational encounter between these two artists takes place on shifting sands, as it were. Through the trope of floating and drifting bodies of earth, whether precariously balanced or suggestively hardened—in Sharabani’s case, through digital manipulation—their installations spatialize migratory anxiety as it persists across generations, in Israeli society at large and in the two artists’ respective biographies, in particular. Aviva Halamish(2018) has discussed immigration as a key trait of Israeli society, asserting that not only has immigration been “the leitmotif of Israel’s history,” but it has “completely changed the demographic dispersion of the Jewish people in the world” (p. 107). Complex and meandering immigration routes have been, and are still, crucial to the formation of a particular type of migratory subject positions both within Israel and beyond its borders. Nadine Blumer(2011) has discussed the transnational nature of this “oft-cited paradigmatic diasporic group” (p. 1331), highlighting the inherent ambiguities of multiple belonging—between the primordial homeland of Israel, now become a real existential option, and “transnational ways of belonging that recognize the transgressive potential of diaspora to disentangle geography from identity” (p. 1344). While acknowledging the potential of transnationality to replace ethno-diasporic identity, Blumer concludes that only a balanced concept of diaspora and transnationalism can adequately “account for the ways in which ethno-diasporic identities are formed and sustained” (p. 1331). Here, I attend to the oeuvres of two “subjects-in-aesthetic-process” (Durrant and Lord 2007, p. 11) caught in cycles of mobility and multiple belonging. Born in Israel to parents who immigrated under persecution from 1930s Germany and 1950s Iraq, respectively, both Ullman and Sharabani enact resonant migratory “returns.” As I go on to discuss, Ullman has transported earth from Israel to Germany—his parents’ country of origin, which they fled in the 1930s following the rise of the Nazi regime. For his part, Sharabani has returned, via Google Earth, to the Iraqi city of Basrah, which his grandparents left with the artist’s then-infant parents in the wake of bloody anti-Jewish riots.1 Notably, hyphenated Jewish identities across the globe had always been transnational. With a small but persistent Jewish population remaining in Israel since before the Roman age, centuries-old diasporic Jewish communities, such as those in Germany and Iraq mentioned here, never ceased regarding

1 As an Israeli citizen, the only possibilities for return open to Sharabani are digital. Arts 2020, 9, 73 3 of 18 themselves as in exile from their land of origin. In their surrounding non-Jewish environments, they had also been regarded as (often unwelcome) exiles from a prior homeland. When immigration, or return, to the primordial land of origin became an actual option in the late 19th century, immigration to Israel (both before and after the establishment of the political state in 1948) was experienced simultaneously as displacement and as a homecoming, invested with hope for a new life free of anti-Semitic harassment. It is against this background that this paper approaches the deployment of soil and sand as media in Israeli art. Bennett’s phenomenological reading of migratory aesthetics calls attention to how politics “are enacted [ ... ] at the level of material and sensate processes” (Bennett 2011, p. 111). I propose to attend to the “transactive” (Bennett 2005, p. 7) mode in which Ullman and Sharabani’s sand installations tap into the politics and trauma of displacement and return.

1. Sharabani, Ullman, and the Video Card (2014) In Tel Aviv in 1939, Micha Ullman was born to parents who had fled Nazi Germany in the early 1930s, when their perceived homeland became a deadly trap for Jews. While based in Israel throughout his life, Ullman has led an internationally successful artistic career since the 1970s, in the course of which he has exhibited work and taught around the world and in Germany in particular (Zalmona 2011). About a generation later, Sharabani was also born in Tel Aviv, which by then had become a major city and the capital of Israeli business and culture. Sharabani’s grandparents immigrated from Iraq in 1951 (communication with the author, October 2019), along with the majority of Iraq’s Jewish population—130,000 out of 135,000 Iraqi Jews abandoned their homes and property in the space of six months, fleeing anti-Zionist (which soon tipped into anti-Semitic) harassment. To exacerbate matters, they were compelled to give up their citizenship by a specially legislated Iraqi law (Bashkin 2012). In 1999, Sharabani, like many young Israeli artists, left Israel to study in New York, where his career as a visual artist began. In 2007, he returned to Tel Aviv, where he lives with his family and bases his international artistic career. In a curious turn of events, the owner of Sharabani’s rented studio space in Tel Aviv belongs to the same generation of German-Jewish immigrants as Micha Ullman. In concluding this paper, I revisit this coincidence, which echoes with radicant resonances. It is also notable, in this respect, that Sharabani’s international career as a media artist involves close trans-Atlantic collaborations with his two brothers, one of whom works in media in New York, the other in the cyber-tech world of Palo Alto, California. Together, they form a truly radicant triad. Traveling back and forth between Tel Aviv and global art centers of the East and West Coasts of the US, Sharabani may be regarded as caught in what Anne Ring Petersen describes as circular migration: “the migratory pattern of artists, who have chosen to be based in their home country but must live as globetrotters and engage with many different cultures and places in order to pursue international careers” (Petersen 2017, Kindle location 2423 of 6382). Yet, undergirding my argument is not the relatively privileged condition enjoyed by Ullman and Sharabani, of internationally acclaimed globetrotting artists. Rather, both artists might be regarded, compellingly if provocatively, as second-generation refugees: the offspring of “parents who fled persecution in their country of origin” (Chimienti et al. 2019, p. 3). This sub-category of second-generation immigrants has recently received scholarly attention (Chimienti et al. 2019; Bloch and Hirsch 2018; Bloch 2018). As demonstrated in Bloch’s study of second-generation refugees from Asia and the Middle East, born and residing in London, “[t]he refugee cycle does not end with the refugee generation, but continues through postmemory that is inherited through narratives, but also through the gaps and silences” (Bloch 2018, p. 662). A subtly articulated anxiety imbues Ullman’s perforated sand tables, earth sculptures, and pits dug in the ground, the most famous of which is the Berlin Library (1994), a Holocaust memorial that consists of an underground library of empty shelves covered by a pane of glass (Figure1). This ghost library, submerged beneath Berlin’s Bebelplatz, is dedicated to the memory of the burning of books at that very site in May 1933. I consider Ullman’s Sand Table (2019; Figure2) and fragile sand installations, alongside Sharabani’s video projections onto sand (Figure3) and his latest Google Earth series of Arts 2020, 9, 73 4 of 24 Arts 2020, 9, 73 4 of 18 at that very site in May 1933. I consider Ullman’s Sand Table (2019; Figure 2) and fragile sand installations, alongside Sharabani’s video projections onto sand (Figure 3) and his latest Google Earth Virtual Territories (2019–2020), in the context of Israel’s historical implication in cycles of migration and series of Virtual Territories (2019–2020), in the context of Israel’s historical implication in cycles of refugeehood. While the scope of this paper does not allow full elaboration of the tangled coexistence migration and refugeehood. While the scope of this paper does not allow full elaboration of the of Jews and Arabs in Israel, it is crucial to keep in mind the existential clash that erupted between tangled coexistence of Jews and Arabs in Israel, it is crucial to keep in mind the existential clash that Jewish refugees, seeking a safe haven from antisemitism in Israel since the late 19th century, and the erupted between Jewish refugees, seeking a safe haven from antisemitism in Israel since the late 19th local Arab population, assuming the Palestinian denomination.2 Culminating in the 1948 conflict century, and the local Arab population, assuming the Palestinian denomination.2 Culminating in the over the establishment of the state of Israel, and the consequent formation of a Palestinian refugee 1948 conflict over the establishment of the state of Israel, and the consequent formation of a population, this conflict has remained unresolved. The intergenerational encounter between Ullman Palestinian refugee population, this conflict has remained unresolved. The intergenerational and Sharabani, taking place through the precarious medium of sand, thus brings into focus the poetics encounter between Ullman and Sharabani, taking place through the precarious medium of sand, thus and problematics of ground, place, and memory in Israeli art in light of its extremely charged history brings into focus the poetics and problematics of ground, place, and memory in Israeli art in light of and its explosive present. its extremely charged history and its explosive present.

Figure 1. Micha Ullman, Library, 1995. Permanent (Bebelplatz, Berlin). Glass, concrete and plaster, Arts 2020Figure, 9, 73 1. Micha Ullman, Library, 1995. Permanent (Bebelplatz, Berlin). Glass, concrete and plaster,5 of 24 excavation, light, 706 cm × 706 cm; depth:depth: 530 cm,cm, glassglass window:window: 120 cm × 120 cm. Photographers: × × Werner Zlein,Zlein, MichaMicha Ullman.Ullman.

Figure 2.2. Micha Ullman, Sand TableTable,, 2019. 2019. IronIron and and red red sand, sand, glass, glass, 90 90 cm cm ×110 110 cm cm × 7575 cm.cm. Photograph: × × Micha Ullman.Ullman.

2 Joan Peters has provided a detailed and extensively researched account of the history of the conflict in (Peters 1985).

2 Joan Peters has provided a detailed and extensively researched account of the history of the conflict in (Peters 1985).

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Figure 3. Ronen Sharabani, Sandbox,, 2014. 2014. Projection Projection on on sand-table, sand-table, 170 170 cm cm × 115115 cm.cm. × UllmanUllman andand Sharabani Sharabani first first met met in in 2014 2014 during during the the mounting mounting of an of exhibition an exhibition at the at Umm the Umm al-Fahm al- artFahm gallery. art gallery.3 Sharabani3 Sharabani documented documented Ullman Ullman on his quest on his for ques differentt for different types of earthtypes and of earth in his and efforts in his to prepareefforts to the prepare earth forthe his earth installation. for his installation. He also documented He also documented on video a on strikingly video a frank,strikingly and frank, politically and charged,politically conversation charged, conversation between Ullman between and Ullman Said Abu and Shakra, Said 4Abutouching Shakra, on4 historiestouching of on displacement histories of anddisplacement return, the and complexities return, the of complexities national identity, of national and ownership identity, and over ownership the land—the over core the conflictual land—the issuescore conflictual underlying issues the extremely underlying uneasy the extremely coexistence uneasy of Jews coexistence and Arabs inof Israel.Jews and The Arabs encounter in Israel. between The Sharabaniencounter andbetween Ullman Sharabani at the Umm and Ullman al-Fahm at artthe galleryUmm al-Fahm is reflected art gallery in Sharabani’s is reflected video, in Sharabani’sCard (2014; Figurevideo, 4Card), a video (2014; work Figure depicting 4), a video Ullman work in depicting the process Ullman of preparing in the process earth forof preparing his installation earth atfor the his gallery.installation Ullman at the seems gallery. absorbed Ullman in seems a strange absorbed ritual in dance, a strange which ritual he performs dance, which to the he grating performs sound to the of earth-crumbsgrating sound cracking of earth-crumbs under the pressurecracking of under his feet. the Sharabani pressure duplicatedof his feet. and Sharabani flipped theduplicated video image, and producingflipped the a video disorienting image, spatialproducing ambiguity a disorienting that recalls spatial the ambiguity architectural that conundrums recalls the architectural of Giovanni Piranesiconundrums (1720–1778) of Giov oranni M.C. Piranesi Escher (1720 (1898–1972).–1778) or NoteM.C. thatEscher Ullmann (1898– is1972). positioned Note that simultaneously Ullmann is atoppositioned and beneath simultaneously a floating atop layer and of earth, beneath despite a floating the obvious layer of fact earth, that despite the gallery the floorobvious can fact only that be seenthe gallery from above. floor Sharabanican only be heightened seen from this above. effect ofSh disorientationarabani heightened through this a serieseffect ofof spatiotemporal disorientation andthrough acoustic a series disruptions. of spatiotemporal The video and opens acoustic with disr auptions. view of The an emptyvideo opens gallery with space, a view save of an for empty three moundsgallery space, of soil save piled for on three the mounds impossibly of soil suspended piled on floor. the impossibly A sound ofsuspended grinding, floor. issuing A sound from anof invisiblegrinding, source, issuing precedes from an Ullman’s invisible entry source, by ten precedes long seconds. Ullman’s An additional entry by nineteenten long seconds seconds. elapse An beforeadditional the activitynineteen that seconds actually elapse explains before the grindingthe activity sound that begins. actually In fact,expl inains this the fifty-seven-second grinding sound video,begins. sound In fact, and in this image fifty-seven-second are never played video, congruently. sound and Over image itsentire are never duration, playedCard congruently.is unsettlingly Over dissonant.its entire duration, The paradoxical Card is unsettlingly spatiality of dissonant. the video The culminates paradoxical when spatiality Ullman entersof the video the space culminates upside down,when Ullman as it were enters (Figure the space4, right), upside a whole down, second as it were before (Figure his 4b), upright a whole mirror-self second before walks his in. upright What ismirror-self more, Ullman’s walks in. movements What is more, are notUllman’s in synch movements with those are ofnot his in flippedsynch with doppelgänger. those of his Indeed,flipped thedoppelgänger. video ends withIndeed, the “uprightthe video Ullman” ends with leaving the “upr theight space Ullman” while his leaving double the lingers space behind. while his Here, double it is productivelingers behind. to recall Here, Mieke it Bal’sis productive attribution to of heterochrony—therecall Mieke Bal’s experience attribution of timeof heterochrony “as multiple [and]—the heterogeneous”experience of time (Bal “as 2011 multiple, p. 213)—to [and] the heterogeneous” aesthetics of “the (Bal social2011, phenomenonp. 213)—to the of aesthetics the movement of “the of people”social phenomenon (p. 212). Miguel of Hernthe movementández-Navarro, of peop whole” collaborated (p. 212). withMiguel Bal onHernández-Navarro, the video-art exhibition who 2MOVE:collaborated Double with Movement Bal on the/Migratory video-art Aesthetics exhibition(2008), 2MOVE: suggested Double that Movement/Migratory migratory experience Aesthetics unfolds within(2008), asuggested “temporal that space migratory which is experience not Euclidian, unfolds but rather within möbian” a “temporal (Hern spaceández-Navarro which is not 2011 Euclidian,, p. 195). Inbut light rather of Hern möbian”ández-Navarro (Hernández-Navarro and Bal’s concept, 2011, Sharabani’sp. 195). In light uncanny of Hernández-Navarro flipped cell might qualify and Bal’s as a concept, Sharabani’s uncanny flipped cell might qualify as a spatiotemporal Möbius strip, a

3 This art gallery, which was established by Said Abu Shakra in the Arab-Israeli town of Umm el-Fahm, is discussed in Ori Soltes’s paper in this issue. 43 https: This //artwww.youtube.com gallery, which/watch?v was established=3yCDnEWVQP4&app by Said Abu=desktop Shakra (Hebrew in the without Arab-Israeli subtitles, town accessed of onUmm 11 February el-Fahm, 2020). is discussed in Ori Soltes’s paper in this issue. 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yCDnEWVQP4&app=desktop (Hebrew without subtitles, accessed on 11 February 2020).

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concept, Sharabani’s uncanny flipped cell might qualify as a spatiotemporal Möbius strip, a spatiotemporaldisorienting space-time Möbius strip, conundru a disorientingm that taps space-time into the conundrum uncertain that status taps of into ground the uncertain in migratory status ofexistence. ground in migratory existence.

Figure 4. Ronen Sharabani, Card, 2014. Video. Figure 4. Ronen Sharabani, Card, 2014. Video. Card serves as my point of entry into an investigation of the two artists’ engagement with sand. The discussionCard serves will as my follow point two of entry major into axes an on investig whichation the works of the of two Ullman artists’ and engagement Sharabani with interface. sand. The firstdiscussion category will of works,follow whichtwo major I refer axes to as on “treacherous which the sands”,works of encompasses Ullman and installations Sharabani involvinginterface. sandThe first tables category and other of works, containers which of soil.I refer The to secondas “treacherous category, “fragilesands”, traces”,encompasses covers installations works that featureinvolving architectural sand tables ground and other plans containers modeled of in soil. sand. The Together, second category, these categories “fragile speak traces”, to covers the notion works of terrathat infirmafeature (architecturalRogoff 2000). ground Yet, I will plans argue modeled that, alongside in sand. this Together, recognition these of categories impermanence, speak Ullman to the andnotion Sharabani of terra engage infirma in (Rogoff a relentlessly 2000). optimisticYet, I will attempt argue at th solidifyingat, alongside and stabilizingthis recognition eternally of shiftingimpermanence, grounds. Ullman and Sharabani engage in a relentlessly optimistic attempt at solidifying and stabilizing eternally shifting grounds. 2. Treacherous Sands: Sand Tables and Other Containers 2. TreacherousIn Israeli culture, Sands: sand Sand is Tables associated and with Other the Containers Mediterranean coast, which constitutes the country’s WesternIn Israeli border culture, and its almostsand is exclusive associated gateway with tothe Europe Mediterranean and beyond. coast, Established which constitutes in 1909 on the sandycountry’s stretches Western of the border Mediterranean and its almost coast, exclusiv the citye of gateway Tel Aviv to has Europe come toand epitomize beyond. the Established resurrection in of1909 the on bi-Millennial the sandy Jewishstretches diaspora of the inMediterranean an old-new nation-state coast, the city situated of Tel on Aviv historically has come coveted to epitomize territory thatthe isresurrection fraught with of contemporary the bi-Millennial tensions. Jewish The namediasporaTelAviv in ansignifies old-new the emergencenation-state of springsituated (Aviv on) fromhistorically beneath coveted an archaeological territory that mound is fraught (Tel with). It iscontemporary often referred tensions. to as the The city name thatTel sprang Aviv fromsignifies the sands.the emergence At the sameof spring time, (Aviv sand,) from like beneath water, trickles an archaeological across boundaries, mound ( defyingTel). It is borders often referred and calling to as notionsthe city of that solid sprang ground from and the territorial sands. At fixity the intosame question. time, sand, like water, trickles across boundaries, defyingSand borders tables, and which calling consist notions of iron of solid or steel ground boxes and filled territorial with sand fixity or into heavier question. red earth (Hamra), formSand the primary tables, pointwhich of consist intersection of iron between or steel Ullman’sboxes filled and with Sharabani’s sand or bodies heavier of red work. earth Sharabani’s (Hamra), installationform the primarySand Box point(2014; of intersection see Figure3 between) features Ullman’s minuscule and virtual Sharabani’s chairs projected bodies of ontowork. a non-virtualSharabani’s sandinstallation table. InSand perfectly Box (2014; simulated see Figure movement, 3) features a pile minuscul of virtuale chairsvirtual accumulates chairs projected before onto collapsing a non- intovirtual the sand sandy table. surface. In perfectly The objects simulated gradually moveme submerge,nt, a as pile if in of quicksand, virtual chairs only toaccumulates reemerge seconds before latercollapsing in an eerie into resurrection.the sandy surface. All the while,The objects at the extremesgradually of submerge, the projection as frameif in quicksand, two human only figures to Arts 2020, 9, 73 7 of 18 Arts 2020, 9, 73 7 of 19 aretwo each human positioned figures are uneasily each positioned on a row of uneasily chairs, attemptingon a row of tochairs, place attempting themselves to impossibly place themselves across severalimpossibly chairs across (Figure several5). Their chairs visible (Figure muscular 5). Their uneasevisible recallsmuscular Mieke unease Bal ’srecalls (2008a Mieke, p. 35) Bal’s assertion (2008a, thatp. 35) “[migratory] assertion that experience, “[migratory] in addition experience, to having in addition to be historicized, to having needs to be tohistoricized, be kinetico-visualized”. needs to be Sharabanikinetico-visualized”. brings together Sharabani moving brings image together and actual, moving material image sand, and the actual, latter material functioning sand, as the a highly latter texturedfunctioning projection as a highly screen textured inviting projection tactile engagement. screen inviting As such, tactile the engagement. work has not As only such, an the augmented work has hapticnot only appeal an augmented (Marks 2002 haptic), but appeal the “synesthetic (Marks 2002), fullness” but the (Bal “synesthetic 2007, p. 34) fullness” and “sentient (Bal 2007, binding” p. 34) (ibid.,and “sentient p. 26) that binding” Bal highlights (ibid., p. as 26) key that traits Bal ofhighlights migratory as aesthetics. key traits of migratory aesthetics.

Figure 5. Ronen Sharabani, Sandbox (detail), (detail), 2014. 2014. ProjectionProjection on on sand sand table, table, 170 170 cm cm × 115115 cm.cm. × InIn strugglingstruggling toto remainremain aboveabove ground,ground, Sharabani’sSharabani’s digitallydigitally simulatedsimulated chairschairs echoecho Ullman’sUllman’s installationinstallation Under,, partpart ofof hishis exhibitionexhibition Sands ofof Time Timeat at The the IsraelIsrael MuseumMuseum( 2011(2011).). Under featuredfeatured sandsand sculpturessculptures ofof household household items items such such as as tables tables and and chairs, chairs, which which appeared appeared submerged submerged beneath beneath the gallerythe gallery floor. floor. Ullman’s Ullman’s toppled toppled chair chair (Figure (Figure6) consists 6) consists of two of rustytwo rusty iron containersiron containers filled filled to the to rim the withrim with red earth.red earth. With With the surfacethe surface of the of moundthe mound inclined inclined by exactly by exactly 350, 35 a liminal0, a liminal angle angle preventing preventing the thinlythe thinly sifted sifted dry earth dry fromearth spilling from spilling over the over sides, th thee sides, work maintainsthe work anmaintains extremely an fragile extremely equilibrium. fragile Ullmanequilibrium. creates Ullman objects creates that, despiteobjects that, appearing despite solid, appearing in fact solid, barely in hold fact barely together. holdChair together.is a case Chair in point.is a case In part,in point. the work’sIn part, appearance the work’s of appearance solidity is downof solidity to the is chromatic down to resemblancethe chromatic between resemblance rusty ironbetween and redrusty soil. iron As and Ullman red soil. has As explained Ullman in has a videoexplained interview in a video on the interview occasion on of histhe 2011occasion exhibition of his at2011 the exhibition Israel Museum, at the Israel iron and Museum, sand both iron conflictand sand and both converge. conflict Theand similarconverge. colors The of similar sand andcolors iron, of hesand said, and camouflage iron, he said, their camouflage diametrically their diametrica opposed physicality.lly opposed Whereas physicality. iron Whereas is solid andiron fixed,is solid sand and isfixed, fluid sand and is dispersive. fluid and dispersive. It is held within It is held the boundarieswithin the boundaries of the iron of container the iron in container a strained in anda strained tense balanceand tense (The balance Israel (The Museum Israel Museum2011). Although 2011). Although it appears it appears solid, the solid, carefully the carefully formed formed body ofbody earth of withinearth within the container the container is extremely is extremely vulnerable. vulnerable. It might It might be displaced be displaced by the by slightest the slightest touch. touch. To adopt To Giulianaadopt Giuliana Bruno’s Bruno’s terms, terms, the surface the surface tension tension evident evident in this in work this compelswork compels sensory sensory engagement, engagement, for it “holdsfor it “holds affects affects in its fabric” in its fabric” (Bruno (Bruno 2014, p. 2014, 80). Needlessp. 80). Needless to say, thisto say, chair this cannot chair acannotfford stable afford seating. stable Likeseating. Sharabani’s Like Sharabani’sSand Box ,Sand Ullman’s Box, chairUllman’s sculpture chair undercutssculpture theundercuts semantic the function semantic universally function attributeduniversally to attributed chairs, of providingto chairs, groundof providing and firm ground support. and In firm the samesupport. move, In thesethe same works move, transform these theworks ground, transform uncannily, the ground, into quicksand. uncannily, into quicksand. Is this irony or bare anxiety? In addressing this question, I shall explore Ullman’s sand tables and earth sculptures in greater depth. A work from the Containers (1988) series named Midnight (Figure7) consists of a large iron container, which has been cast in the generic form of a house and holds a pyramid of red sand. Like the objects constituting the installation Under, this sculpture relies on Ullman’s technique of keeping sand in a dangerous equilibrium while creating a deceptive impression of firmness. Taking up Freud’s uncanny in its original German formulation, we might say that if

Arts 2020, 9, 73 8 of 18

Midnight is a home, it is profoundly unheimlich. It is a home haunted by its own fragility. Day (Figure8), another work in the Containers series, is the obverse of Midnight. It sets forth the same generic house but in negative form. Here, the home is a hollowed-out mass, which—collapsing in on itself—might become a massive tomb. Arts 2020, 9, 73 9 of 24

Figure 6. Micha Ullman, Under (detail), 2009. Iron and red sand. Chair: 27 cm × 45cm × 43 cm, 12 parts, Figure 6. Micha Ullman, Under (detail), 2009. Iron and red sand. Chair: 27 cm 45cm 43 cm, 12 parts, varying sizes. Photograph: Micha Ullman. × × varying sizes. Photograph: Micha Ullman. Is this irony or bare anxiety? In addressing this question, I shall explore Ullman’s sand tables and earth sculptures in greater depth. A work from the Containers (1988) series named Midnight The motif(Figure of the 7) hollowconsists of house,a large iron a container, negative whic formh has been carved cast in inthe earth,generic form recurs of a house throughout and Ullman’s work. It returnsholds in Sanda pyramid Table of red, presented sand. Like the at objects the constituting 2019 Jerusalem the installation Biennale Under, this (see sculpture Figure relies2). Having been on Ullman’s technique of keeping sand in a dangerous equilibrium while creating a deceptive punctured throughimpression with of afirmness. house-shaped Taking up Freud’s aperture, uncanny the in itsbase original of German the iron formulation, table framewe might lets say sand drift out, leaving a slopedthat crater if Midnight in is the a home, shape it is profoundly of Ullman’s unheimlich generic. It is a home form, haunted the by ghostly its own fragility. home. Day As in the larger earth sculptures,(FigureDay 8),and anotherMidnight work in ,the the Containers work reliesseries, is on the aobverse delicate of Midnight equilibrium. It sets forth ensured the same by slanting the generic house but in negative form. Here, the home is a hollowed-out mass, which—collapsing in on sand at a liminalitself—might angle. Downscaling become a massive thetomb. pit to gallery size, Ullman’s 2019 Sand Table destabilizes the home’s foundations.The motif of the hollow house, a negative form carved in earth, recurs throughout Ullman’s work. It returns in Sand Table, presented at the 2019 Jerusalem Biennale (see Figure 2). Having been Ullman’s experimentationpunctured through with with a house-shaped perforated aperture, sand the base tables of the commenced iron table frame lets in sand the drift wake out, of a visit to the Auschwitz deathleaving camp, a sloped where crater thein the artist’s shape of Ullman’s attention gene wasric form, drawn the ghostly to an home. exhibit As in the in larger which earth a glass-covered sculptures, Day and Midnight, the work relies on a delicate equilibrium ensured by slanting the sand table had beenat set a liminal for a mealangle. Downscaling whose participants the pit to gallery were size, never Ullman’s to 2019 arrive Sand (TableZalmona destabilizes 2011 the). Ullman’s iron tables, filled withhome’s thinly foundations. sifted red earth, ostensibly offer support and containment—firm ground. Through their perforated bottoms, however, the tables betray this promise. The installation Map (2002; Figure9) features a chair and table that have left visible traces of being dragged along the ground in a short-lived act of mapping. As in the case of Sharabani’s Sand Box (Figures3 and5), Ullman’s sand boxes preserve only the faintest traces of those presences to have left their imprint upon them. Evincing a deep-seated sense of insecurity, Ullman’s fragile homes and grounds might dematerialize upon theArts 2020 slightest, 9, 73 contact with air or bodies. In making an aesthetic leap from earth sculptures10 of 24 to virtual reality, Sharabani broaches similar concerns.

Figure 7. Micha Ullman, Midnight, from the series “Containers,” 1988. Iron and red sand, 320 cm × Figure 7. Micha Ullman, Midnight, from the series “Containers”, 1988. Iron and red sand, 240 cm, height: 253 cm. Photograph: Israel museum, Jerusalem/Avraham Hay. 320 cm 240 cm, height: 253 cm. Photograph: Israel museum, Jerusalem/Avraham Hay. ×

Arts 2020, 9, 73 11 of 24 Arts 2020, 9, 73 9 of 18

FigureFigure 8. Micha 8. Micha Ullman, Ullman,Day Day, from, from the the series series “Containers,” “Containers,” 1988. 1988. Iron Iron and and red red sand, sand, 240 cm 240 × cm320 cm,320 cm, Arts 2020Height:, 9, 73 178 cm. Photograph: Israel museum, Jerusalem/Avraham Hay. ×12 of 24 Height: 178 cm. Photograph: Israel museum, Jerusalem/Avraham Hay. Ullman’s experimentation with perforated sand tables commenced in the wake of a visit to the Auschwitz death camp, where the artist’s attention was drawn to an exhibit in which a glass-covered table had been set for a meal whose participants were never to arrive (Zalmona 2011). Ullman’s iron tables, filled with thinly sifted red earth, ostensibly offer support and containment—firm ground. Through their perforated bottoms, however, the tables betray this promise. The installation Map (2002; Figure 9) features a chair and table that have left visible traces of being dragged along the ground in a short-lived act of mapping. As in the case of Sharabani’s Sand Box (Figures 3 and 5), Ullman’s sand boxes preserve only the faintest traces of those presences to have left their imprint upon them. Evincing a deep-seated sense of insecurity, Ullman’s fragile homes and grounds might dematerialize upon the slightest contact with air or bodies. In making an aesthetic leap from earth sculptures to virtual reality, Sharabani broaches similar concerns.

Figure 9. Micha Ullman, Map, 2002. Sand installation; Iron and red sand. Table: 110 cm × 78 cm, height: Figure 9. Micha Ullman, Map, 2002. Sand installation; Iron and red sand. Table: 110 cm 78 cm, height: 85 cm; Chair: 45 cm × 45 cm, height: 85 cm; Dragging backward: 5–9 m. Photograph: Avraham× Hay. 85 cm; Chair: 45 cm 45 cm, height: 85 cm; Dragging backward: 5–9 m. Photograph: Avraham Hay. × This may be the point to bring in Bennett’s proposition with regard to the “transactive” character Thisof trauma-related may be the point art. Assuming to bring ina phenomenological Bennett’s proposition rather withthan hermeneutic regard to the viewpoint, “transactive” I propose character of trauma-relatedthat the grainy art. materiality Assuming of sand a phenomenological endows these works rather with a thandistinctly hermeneutic sensual appeal viewpoint, which relies I propose that theon grainytheir tactile materiality or haptic of suggestiveness. sand endows While these th worksese works with address a distinctly the unre sensualliabilityappeal of ground which and relies on theirsignal tactile displacement or haptic in suggestiveness. myriad ways, still, While a specific theseally worksphenomenological address the inquiry unreliability is prone to of disclose ground and signala displacement compensatory inpresence myriad effect, ways, approachable still, a specifically in the terms phenomenological proposed by Hans inquiry U. Gumbrecht is prone (2004). to disclose a compensatoryOn Gumbrecht’s presence account, effect, this approachable means that the ininstallations the terms under proposed scrutiny by Hanstap into U. “a Gumbrecht layer in our(2004 ). existence that simply wants the things of the world close to our skin” (ibid., p. 106), thus reaffirming On Gumbrecht’s account, this means that the installations under scrutiny tap into “a layer in our our presence or emplacement in a material body, if only fleetingly.5 Significantly in this respect, existencevisitors that to simply Sharabani’s wants installations the things are of hard the worldput to distinguish close to our between skin” (ibid.,the virtual p. 106), objects thus projected reaffirming 5 our presenceonto the or sand emplacement and the concrete in a materialmateriality body, of the if medium only fleetingly. itself. TheSignificantly surfaces and mounds in this respect,of sand in visitors to Sharabani’sboth Ullman’s installations and Sharabani’s are hard work put induce to distinguish a strong desire between to sink the one’s virtual fingers objects in them projected or scoop up onto the sand anda handful. the concrete In fact, visitors materiality to Sharabani’s of the medium exhibits have itself. been The caught surfaces attempting and mounds to manually of sandcapture in both Ullman’sthe virtual and Sharabani’s objects, complete work with induce the asupporting strong desire sand to(Figure sink one’s10). This fingers would in suggest themor that scoop the up a handful.interfacing In fact, of visitors sand and toSharabani’s digital media exhibits fosters somatosensory have been caught arousa attemptingl and cognitive to manually dissonance. capture An the augmented sense of bodily presence therefore seems crucial to the experience afforded by the virtual objects, complete with the supporting sand (Figure 10). This would suggest that the interfacing installation. Ullman’s installations, too, incite viewers to tactile engagement with massive bodies of of sand and digital media fosters somatosensory arousal and cognitive dissonance. An augmented rust and sand, with the haptically suggestive sand tables and the deep pits in the ground, which I sense ofshall bodily discuss presence presently. therefore In addition, seems I crucial propose to th theat experienceUllman’s carefully afforded balanced by the installation.mounds of earth Ullman’s induce a similar bodily tension as that displayed by the human figures in Sharabani’s Sandbox.

5 For a discussion connecting haptic effectiveness with migratory aesthetics, see Aldouby(2020).

5 For a discussion connecting haptic effectiveness with migratory aesthetics, see Aldouby (2020).

Arts 2020, 9, 73 10 of 18 installations, too, incite viewers to tactile engagement with massive bodies of rust and sand, with the haptically suggestive sand tables and the deep pits in the ground, which I shall discuss presently. In addition, I propose that Ullman’s carefully balanced mounds of earth induce a similar bodily tension asArts that 2020 displayed, 9, 73 by the human figures in Sharabani’s Sandbox. 13 of 24

Figure 10. Visitor scooping up sand with a projected image.

Bennett stresses that “it is the sensation arising in space that is the operativ operativee element: its capacity to sustain sensationsensation [[…]... ]rather rather than than to to communicate communicate meaning” meaning” (Bennett (Bennett 2005,2005, p. p. 18). This This assertion dovetails with with my my argument argument that that the the sand sand installations installations under under analysis analysis here here affectively affectively transact, transact, in inBennett’s Bennett’s terms, terms, through through bodily bodily tensions tensions and and sens sensationsations of of instability, instability, while while at at the the same time countering the experience of shifting ground withwith aa heightenedheightened sensesense ofof bodilybodily presence.presence.

3. Fragile Traces: Ephemeral Architectures and Views from Google Earth Ullman’s career as a sculptor debuted in the 197 1970s,0s, during which he prod produceduced an Israeli variant on American American Earth Earth Art, Art, which which he hehas hasoften often referenced referenced as an asart-historical an art-historical context context for his early for his projects early projects(Zalmona (Zalmona 2011, pp. 2011 361–71)., pp. In 361–71). one site-specific In one site-specific work, performed work, performed in 1972 as inpart 1972 of asthe part collective of the collectiveMetzer-MeisserMetzer-Meisser art project,art Ullman project, exchanged Ullman exchanged earth betw eartheen betweentwo identical two identical cubical cubicalpits dug pits in dugthe ingrounds the grounds of Kibbutz of Kibbutz Metzer Metzer and it ands neighboring its neighboring Arab Arabvillage, village, Meisser Meisser (Zalmona (Zalmona 2011, 2011p. 371)., p. 371).The Theexchanged exchanged bodies bodies of earth of earth were were layered layered with with connota connotationstions of of historical historical yearning, yearning, and, and, to to no no lesser extent, byby thethe actuality actuality of of unresolved unresolved conflict conflict over over the land.the land. The workThe work invoked invoked the Hebrew the Hebrew term Adama term (Earth),Adama (Earth), which, which, in enfolding in enfoldingAdam (Man) Adam and (Man)Dam and(Blood), Dam (Blood), evokes bothevokes the both painful the conflictpainful andconflict the possibilityand the possibility that the contestedthat the contested territory territory might be might shared. be shared. This land-exchange project has a biographical dimension, relating closely to both the migratory history of the artist’s family and to his entire generation’s commitment to putting down new roots in the land from from which which their their ancestors ancestors had had been been upro uprooted.oted. The The eleven-year-old eleven-year-old Micha Micha was was entrusted entrusted by byhis hisfather father with with the thetask task of diggin of diggingg seven seven cubic cubic pits pits in the in thefield field adjacent adjacent to the to thefamily family home, home, which which the thefather father would would then then fill with fill with fertile fertile HamraHamra earthearth brought brought from fromanother another region region of Israel, of Israel, providing providing good goodconditions conditions for growing for growing fruit bearing fruit bearing trees (Zalmona trees (Zalmona 2011, 2011p. 365)., p. Ullman’s 365). Ullman’s engagement engagement with earth with earthas an asaesthetic an aesthetic medium medium appears appears to have to have been been nourished nourished by by this this early early memory, memory, compellingly embodying the Zionist ethos of re-fertilizing the historicallyhistorically longed-for land. The exchange of earth between an Israeli Kibbutz and a neighboringneighboring Arab-Israeli village, bearing the mutually resonant names of MetzerMetzer/Meisser,/Meisser, addressesaddresses thethe politicspolitics ofof thethe conflict.conflict. In yet another earth project, mentioned in my opening opening remarks, Ullman shipped red Hamra from his home home in in Israel Israel to to the the chur churchch of St. of Matthew St. Matthew in Berlin’s in Berlin’s Kunstforum, Kunstforum, where where he installed he installed Steps (2012).Steps (2012).The installation The installation consists consistsof seven of iron seven stairs iron functioning stairs functioning as containers as containers for the earth, for the which earth, descend which descendinto a shaft into filled a shaft with filled still withmorestill red moreHamra red. TheHamra choice. The of site choice for this of site installation for this installation evokes the evokesmurdered the resistance fighter, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was ordained as a priest in St. Matthew’s in 1931. The pit’s depth matches the artist’s height, conforming to his practice of working to the scale of his own body. These human dimensions invest the installation with the solemnity of a burial chamber. Like the iron and earth sculptures Day and Midnight, it enfolds positive and negative, home and tomb, ground and underground. In a way, Steps brings to mind Walter de Maria’s Earth Room, which itself originated in Munich, Germany, in 1968 (being installed in New York in 1977). Still, Ullman’s

Arts 2020, 9, 73 11 of 18 murdered resistance fighter, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was ordained as a priest in St. Matthew’s in 1931. The pit’s depth matches the artist’s height, conforming to his practice of working to the scale of his own body. These human dimensions invest the installation with the solemnity of a burial chamber. Like the iron and earth sculptures Day and Midnight, it enfolds positive and negative, home and tomb, Arts 2020, 9, 73 14 of 24 ground and underground. In a way, Steps brings to mind Walter de Maria’s Earth Room, which itself originated in Munich, Germany, in 1968 (being installed in New York in 1977). Still, Ullman’s conflicted conflicted and traumatic emplacement, involving fragile transportable ground, stands in stark and traumatic emplacement, involving fragile transportable ground, stands in stark contrast to the contrast to the obdurate mass of black earth, which fills De Maria’s room with the sensuality of primal obdurate mass of black earth, which fills De Maria’s room with the sensuality of primal nature. nature. Another conjunction that calls for attention is that between De Maria’s and Ullmann’s earth Another conjunction that calls for attention is that between De Maria’s and Ullmann’s earth installations at the Kassel Documenta exhibitions of 1977 and 1987, respectively. In 1977, De Maria installations at the Kassel Documenta exhibitions of 1977 and 1987, respectively. In 1977, De Maria installed his Vertical Earth Kilometer at Kassel; a decade later, in 1987, Ullman conceived and executed installed his Vertical Earth Kilometer at Kassel; a decade later, in 1987, Ullman conceived and executed Grund (Figure 11), which literally means reason in German but also resonates with the English term Grund (Figure 11), which literally means reason in German but also resonates with the English term ground. De Maria’s Earth Kilometer confidently laid claim not only to the surface of the land but ground. De Maria’s Earth Kilometer confidently laid claim not only to the surface of the land but to its to its deep substrata too. Ullman’s approach to earth could scarcely be more different. Lifting a deep substrata too. Ullman’s approach to earth could scarcely be more different. Lifting a chunk of chunk of earth off the ground, he positioned it such that it extended above a pit surrounded by earth off the ground, he positioned it such that it extended above a pit surrounded by a grove of trees. a grove of trees. There is no escaping the connotation of mass burial in Grund, which recalls the There is no escaping the connotation of mass burial in Grund, which recalls the mass killings of Jews mass killings of Jews by the Einzatsgruppen in the forests of occupied Europe (Westermann 2019). by the Einzatsgruppen in the forests of occupied Europe (Westermann 2019). Beyond the memory of Beyond the memory of trauma, though, the installation centrally evokes a loss of purchase on the trauma, though, the installation centrally evokes a loss of purchase on the ground. Over and above ground. Over and above its unmissable reference to the Shoah and the title’s ambiguous reference its unmissable reference to the Shoah and the title’s ambiguous reference to reason and reasoning, to reason and reasoning, the installation’s uprooted and floating ground resonates with profound the installation’s uprooted and floating ground resonates with profound existential incertitude. existential incertitude. Ullman’s work in Kassel, which is close to the town from which his family were Ullman’s work in Kassel, which is close to the town from which his family were traumatically traumatically displaced, evinces a persistent migratory apprehension. displaced, evinces a persistent migratory apprehension.

FigureFigure 11.11. GroundGround ((GrundGrund),), 1987.1987. (Permanent)(Permanent) SkulptrenmuseumSkulptrenmuseum glaskasten, Marl, Germany. Iron, earth,earth, grass,grass, 1515 mm × 15 m. Depth: 3 3 m, m, height height from from the the ground: ground: 1.06 1.06 m. m. Photograph: Photograph: Micha Micha Ullman. Ullman. × SomeSome ofof Ullman’sUllman’s laterlater installationsinstallations spatializespatialize existential transience at a scale suitedsuited toto gallerygallery exhibition.exhibition. In Sanday,, performed inin 1997,1997, thethe artistartist movedmoved thethe contentscontents of his home into an art gallery inin TelTel Aviv.Aviv. TheThe HebrewHebrew title,title, YomYom HolHol,, playsplays onon thethe doubledouble meaningmeaning of “weekday” and and “sand “sand day.” day.” SprayingSpraying thinlythinly sieved sieved red red soil soil over over the objectsthe objects before before removing removing them carefully, them carefully, he created he an created ephemeral an sandephemeral map of sand his family map home.of his Afamily similar home. gesture A cansimilar be found gesture in the can site-specific be found installationin the site-specificWedding (Figureinstallation 12), Wedding which featured (Figure 12), centrally which in featured the artist’s centrally retrospective in the artist’s exhibition retrospectiveSandsof exhibition Time (2011) Sands at theof Time Israel (2011) Museum. at the A performativeIsrael Museum. “wedding,” A performati the installationve “wedding,” entailed the the installation exhibition curatorsentailed andthe volunteersexhibition curators acting out and a Jewish volunteers matrimonial acting out ceremony. a Jewish The matrimonial artist sprayed ceremony. a thin shower The artist of Hamra sprayedsoil a overthin shower the entire of scene,Hamra participants soil over the included. entire scene, Ullman participants defined his included. own part Ullman as that defined of a “photographer,” his own part as that of a “photographer,” recording in sand the imprint of a cryptic event that seemed to have been disrupted, perhaps violently. Finally, in the installation Semidetached (2018; Figure 13), Ullman returned to the trope of the home, tracing the floor plans of his family residence and the adjacent neighbors’ semi-detached home in thin berms of red Hamra. Re-scaling the house to fit the gallery space, the artist included the contours of home amenities, such as showers, wash basins, and bathrooms, among which visitors were invited to meander. The extreme fragility of the installation required weekly maintenance, which the artist undertook himself with the help of assistants,

Arts 2020, 9, 73 12 of 19

Some of Ullman’s later installations spatialize existential transience at a scale suited to gallery exhibition. In Sanday, performed in 1997, the artist moved the contents of his home into an art gallery in Tel Aviv. The Hebrew title, Yom Hol, plays on the double meaning of “weekday” and “sand day.” Spraying thinly sieved red soil over the objects before removing them carefully, he created an ephemeral sand map of his family home. A similar gesture can be found in the site-specific installation Wedding (Figure 12), which featured centrally in the artist’s retrospective exhibition Sands of Time (2011) at the Israel Museum. A performative “wedding,” the installation entailed the Artsexhibition2020, 9, 73 curators and volunteers acting out a Jewish matrimonial ceremony. The artist sprayed12 of 18a thin shower of Hamra soil over the entire scene, participants included. Ullman defined his own part as that of a “photographer,” recording in sand the imprint of a cryptic event that seemed to have been recording in sand the imprint of a cryptic event that seemed to have been disrupted, perhaps violently. disrupted, perhaps violently. Finally, in the installation Semidetached (2018; Figure 13), Ullman Finally, in the installation Semidetached (2018; Figure 13), Ullman returned to the trope of the home, returned to the trope of the home, tracing the floor plans of his family residence and the adjacent tracing the floor plans of his family residence and the adjacent neighbors’ semi-detached home in thin neighbors’ semi-detached home in thin berms of red Hamra. Re-scaling the house to fit the gallery berms of red Hamra. Re-scaling the house to fit the gallery space, the artist included the contours of space, the artist included the contours of home amenities, such as showers, wash basins, and home amenities, such as showers, wash basins, and bathrooms, among which visitors were invited bathrooms, among which visitors were invited to meander. The extreme fragility of the installation to meander. The extreme fragility of the installation required weekly maintenance, which the artist required weekly maintenance, which the artist undertook himself with the help of assistants, undertookrestoring ledges himself damaged with the by help visitors of assistants, walking restoring inside the ledges transitory damaged home. by visitorsSanday, walkingWedding inside, and Sanday Wedding Semidetached theSemidetached transitory home.are fragile memory, maps,, and investing the arevery fragile notion memory of presence maps, with investing the haunting the very notionshadow of of presence impermanence. with the haunting shadow of impermanence.

Arts 2020, 9, 73 16 of 24 Figure 12. Micha Ullman, Wedding,2011. 2011. IsraelIsrael museum,museum, Jerusalem,Jerusalem, sandsand throwingthrowing installation.installation. Red Sand, about 100 participants, 268268 sq.sq. m. Photograph: Avraham Avraham Hay.

Figure 13. Micha Ullman, Semidetached, 2018. Earth installation presented at Scene of Events Figure 13.13. MichaMicha Ullman, Ullman,Semidetached Semidetached, 2018., 2018. Earth Earth installation installation presented presented at Scene at of EventsScene exhibition,of Events exhibition, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, 2018. Red sand, 6 cm × 1470 cm × 2000 cm. Photo: exhibition,Herzliya Museum Herzliya ofMuseum Contemporary of Contemporary Art, 2018. Art, Red 2018. sand, Red sand, 6 cm 6 cm1470 × 1470 cm cm 2000× 2000 cm. cm. Photo: Avraham Hay. × × Avraham Hay.Hay.

Ullman’s sandsand maps maps of of memory memory scapes scapes return return with awith twist a intwist Sharabani’s in Sharabani’s project, Virtualproject, Territories Virtual

(2019–2020),Territories (2019–2020), digitally manipulating digitally manipulating satellite views satellite derived views from Googlederived Earth. from One Google geographical Earth. One site geographicalchosen for experimentation site chosen for experimentation is the Iraqi city of is Basrah.the Iraqi Formerly city of Basrah. home Formerly to the artist’s home family, to the Basrahartist’s family,remains Basrah inaccessible remains to inaccessible Israeli citizens to Israeli to this citizens day. to Sharabani’s this day. Sharabani’s family, along family, with along most with of Iraq’s most Jewishof Iraq’s population, Jewish population, fled Iraq fled in the Iraq wake in the of wake anti-Jewish of anti-Jewish persecution, persecution, which peaked which inpeaked the Farhud in the pogromFarhud pogrom of June 1941of June (United 1941 States (United Holocaust States Ho Memoriallocaust Memorial Museum 2019b Museum). After 2019b). a decade’s After tribulation,a decade’s practicallytribulation, thepractically entire Jewish the entire population Jewish population left Iraq as oneleft Iraq in 1951, as one shocked in 1951, by shocked the sudden by the collapse sudden of collapsetheir participation of their participation in the country’s in the economic country’s and economic cultural and life cultural (Bashkin life 2012 (Bashkin). Forced 2012). to forfeit Forced their to forfeit their citizenship and private property upon leaving, by a specially legislated decree, Jews have been unable to return since, even only to visit (The Museum of the Jewish People 2019). Unlike Ullman, who has been invited to return to Germany as a distinguished professor of art, and has had the opportunity to perform acts of closure through installations such as Library, Grund, and Steps, Sharabani is denied access to his parents’ “sending country” (Chimienti et al. 2019; Bloch and Hirsch 2018). While the artist’s grandfather had long relinquished any desire to reestablish contact with his former hometown of Basrah, the artist found an outlet for his quest in the remote views of Google Earth. The manipulated satellite images of Basrah presented in Virtual Territories neither disclose the artist’s family history nor reveal any trace of the millennia of Jewish life that predated the Islamic settlement of the region. These satellite-mediated views neutralize the history of violence and the trauma of displacement, affording what the artist regards as “analytical distance” (communication with the author on 2 December 2019)—which comes at the cost of masking personal and collective memories. This possibly resonates with the gaps and silences which Bloch (2018, p. 652) describes as essential to the life experience of second-generation refugees. In choosing to resort to Google Earth’s global views, Sharabani sends us into orbit in an inverse spatial movement to Ullman’s digging and transporting bodies of earth. Yet, Sharabani experiments with the possibility of transforming the lost or inaccessible presences into solid surfaces, invoking the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian art of bas-relief (communication with the author on 14 October 2019). Presented as if in low relief, the views of Basrah from outer space bring to mind archaeological excavation sites—unearthing the foundations of vanished civilizations. One work from among Virtual Territories named Basrah #4 (Figure 14), for example, is a digital simulation of a tabletop sandstone relief. In other iterations, such as Basrah #3 (Figure 15), Sharabani has added a bronze tint to the satellite image. Invoking Mesopotamian art, the artist forges a connection between twenty-first-century Iraq and the region’s remote past under the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. In turn, this nod to the region’s history invokes the primordial Jewish trauma of

Arts 2020, 9, 73 13 of 18 citizenship and private property upon leaving, by a specially legislated decree, Jews have been unable to return since, even only to visit (The Museum of the Jewish People 2019). Unlike Ullman, who has been invited to return to Germany as a distinguished professor of art, and has had the opportunity to perform acts of closure through installations such as Library, Grund, and Steps, Sharabani is denied access to his parents’ “sending country” (Chimienti et al. 2019; Bloch and Hirsch 2018). While the artist’s grandfather had long relinquished any desire to reestablish contact with his former hometown of Basrah, the artist found an outlet for his quest in the remote views of Google Earth. The manipulated satellite images of Basrah presented in Virtual Territories neither disclose the artist’s family history nor reveal any trace of the millennia of Jewish life that predated the Islamic settlement of the region. These satellite-mediated views neutralize the history of violence and the trauma of displacement, affording what the artist regards as “analytical distance” (communication with the author on 2 December 2019)—which comes at the cost of masking personal and collective memories. This possibly resonates with the gaps and silences which Bloch(2018, p. 652) describes as essential to the life experience of second-generation refugees. In choosing to resort to Google Earth’s global views, Sharabani sends us into orbit in an inverse spatial movement to Ullman’s digging and transporting bodies of earth. Yet, Sharabani experiments with the possibility of transforming the lost or inaccessible presences into solid surfaces, invoking the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian art of bas-relief (communication with the author on 14 October 2019). Presented as if in low relief, the views of Basrah from outer space bring to mind archaeological excavation sites—unearthing the foundations of vanished civilizations. One work from among Virtual Territories named Basrah #4 (Figure 14), for example, is a digital simulation of a tabletop sandstone relief. In other iterations, such as Basrah #3 (Figure 15), Sharabani has added a bronze tint to the satellite image. Invoking Mesopotamian art, the artist forges a connection between twenty-first-century Iraq and the region’s remote past under the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. In turn, this nod to the region’s history invokes the primordial Jewish trauma of displacement Arts 2020, 9, 73 17 of 24 and exile under Babylon, in the seventh century BCE. Returning full circle to modern Iraq, Virtual displacementTerritories revisits and theexile home under of Babylon, one among in the a huge seventh number century of diasporicBCE. Returning Jewish full communities. circle to modern After Iraq,millennia Virtual in Iraq,Territories this community revisits the took home up the of challenge one among of relocating a huge to number Israel, its of historical diasporic country Jewish of communities.origin, in the spaceAfter ofmillennia a few months in Iraq, in this 1951. community The virtually took rendered up the reliefchallenge folds of the relocating migratory to journey Israel, itsundertaken historical bycountry the artist’s of origin, family in ontothe s the region’s ancient history. Basrah is approached from a safe distance as an excavation site viewed from space. In a manner, this resonates with Ullman’s tomb-like pits hollowed out in German soil.

FigureFigure 14. 14. RonenRonen Sharabani, Sharabani, BasrahBasrah #4 #4,, from from the the series series VirtualVirtual Territories Territories, 2019. Digital Digital print. print. Arts 2020, 9, 73 18 of 24 Arts 2020, 9, 73 14 of 18

Figure 15. Ronen Sharabani, Basrah #3 (detail), from the series Virtual Territories,, 2019.2019. DigitalDigital print.print.

Looking beyond beyond the the images images of of Basrah, Basrah, the the VirtualVirtual Territories Territories series addresses Google Earth views of Jerusalem’sJerusalem’s Temple Mount.Mount. The quintessence of JewishJewish identity for close to three millennia,millennia, this site has been violently contested among the threethree monotheisticmonotheistic religions.religions. In this work, Sharabani has tracedtraced the contours of the satellite image of Temple Mount onto an actual sand table (Figure 16a),16a), opting, in his words, words, to to “bring “bring the the place place itself itself into into the the studio” studio” (communication (communication with with the the author author on on13 13October October 2019). 2019). Addressing Addressing this this politically politically charge chargedd geographical geographical site, site, Sharabani’s Sharabani’s Temple MountMount series maps the biblical and historicalhistorical trauma of the Jewish exile from Jerusalem onto contemporary circumstances, namelynamely thethe ongoing political conflictconflict between Israel and IslamicIslamic fundamentalists over thethe rightright toto worship worship in in this this site site cherished cherished by theby threethe three monotheistic monotheistic religions. religions. Recalling Recalling Bennett Bennett’s’s (2005, Arts 2020, 9, 73 19 of 24 p.(2005, 12) insistencep. 12) insistence that, in that, aesthetic in aesthetic experience, experien traumace, hastrauma “a presence, has “a presence, a force”, a I proposeforce”, I thatpropose the sand that tablethe sand itself table renders itself the renders anxiety the of anxiety the conflict of the compellingly conflict compellingly present in present the artist’s in the studio. artist’s studio. Sharabani does not opt for resolution, as does Ullman in the 1970s earth-exchange project, Metzer/Meisser. Rather, his foregrounding of the fragility of the structure traced in sand displays an ingrained apprehension. Yet, his digital manipulation of the photographed table (Figure 16b) confers a concrete solidity on the sand relief, symbolically fortifying the fragile traces of ancient Jewish presence in Jerusalem. Where Ullman’s sculptures establish a chromatic kinship between red Hamra and rusty iron, Sharabani transforms sand into concrete. A deeply ingrained yearning for firm ground drives both aesthetic projects.

(a) (b)

FigureFigure 16. 16. RonenRonen Sharabani, Mountain Outline, Outline, plate plate #1 #1 (a(a) )sand sand table table in in process, process, 90 90 cm cm × 125125 cm; cm; (b) × (bdigital) digital mold. mold.

SharabaniA full discussion does not of opt the for Virtual resolution, Territories as does series Ullman requires in the attending 1970s earth-exchange to a third group project, of Metzermanipulated/Meisser Google. Rather, Earth his foregrounding images, these centering of the fragility on Tel of Aviv, the structure the artist’s traced city inof sandresidence. displays Cistern an ingrained#1 (2019; apprehension.Figure 17a) and Yet, Cistern his digital #2 manipulation(2019; Figure of17b) the are photographed both based table on digitally (Figure 16 manipulatedb) confers a concretephotographs solidity of onthe the sand sand table relief, in the symbolically artist’s studio, fortifying superimposed the fragile with traces Google of ancient Earth Jewish views presence of major inroad Jerusalem. junctions Where in Tel Ullman’s Aviv metropolitan sculptures area, establish the most a chromatic heavily kinship populated between region red ofHamra Israel. andSharabani rusty iron,has transformed Sharabani transforms the expanse sand of sand into concrete.into a post-apoca A deeplylyptic ingrained concrete yearning wasteland, for firmscarred ground by thin drives lines bothmarking aesthetic the projects.roads that, before the unexplained apocalypse, were presumably bustling with life. CisternA full #1, discussion being the of negative the Virtual image Territories of Cisternseries #2 requires, features attending the blank to a thirdexpanses group in of deep manipulated black as Googlelooming Earth cavities images, that threaten these centering to suck in on all Tel life. Aviv, Sharabani the artist’s regards city Cistern of residence. #1 as an X-ray,Cistern probing #1 (2019; into FigureCistern 17 #2a) andto revealCistern traces #2 (2019; of former Figure life 17b) in are the both form based of minuscule on digitally residential manipulated buildings photographs clustered of around the black holes (communication with the author on 2 December 2019).

Arts 2020, 9, 73 15 of 18 the sand table in the artist’s studio, superimposed with Google Earth views of major road junctions in Tel Aviv metropolitan area, the most heavily populated region of Israel. Sharabani has transformed the expanse of sand into a post-apocalyptic concrete wasteland, scarred by thin lines marking the roads that, before the unexplained apocalypse, were presumably bustling with life. Cistern #1, being the negative image of Cistern #2, features the blank expanses in deep black as looming cavities that threaten to suck in all life. Sharabani regards Cistern #1 as an X-ray, probing into Cistern #2 to reveal Arts 2020, 9, 73 20 of 24 traces of former life in the form of minuscule residential buildings clustered around the black holes (communication with the author on 2 December 2019).

(a) (b)

Figure 17.17. RonenRonen Sharabani, Sharabani, (a ()aCistern) Cistern #1 ,(#1b,) (Cisternb) Cistern #2, from#2, from the series the seriesVirtual Virtual Territories Territories, 2019. Digital, 2019. prints,Digital 100prints, cm 100100 cm cm × 100 each. cm each. × The works that comprise Virtual Territories,, particularlyparticularly CisternCistern ##1 and Cistern #2, render surfacesurface textures aaffectivelyffectively communicativecommunicative oror “transactive”“transactive” ((BennettBennett 20052005).). These These surfaces are digitallydigitally manipulated so as to suggest a variety of resonant resonant materialities and textures, from sandstone, through bronze, to rough concrete.concrete. In In their different different ways, these tense surfaces seem to appeal directly to visitors’ skins, arousing expectationsexpectations ofof tactiletactile stimulation.stimulation. In fact, gallery visitors have felt compelled to touchtouch thethe digitaldigital prints,prints, expectingexpecting toto feelfeel texturetexture inin reliefrelief ratherrather thanthan aa smoothsmooth surface.surface. In Bal’sBal’s terms of migratory aesthetics, Sharabani’s images participate in “a new sensate production of surface as skin” ((BalBal 2008b2008b,, p. 22). In this way, theythey seemseem toto privilegeprivilege GumbrechtGumbrecht’s’s ((2004,2004, p. 111) “presence“presence eeffect”ffect” overover thethe obverseobverse “meaning“meaning eeffect”.ffect”. Needless to stress, this is not to claim a naïve return to a form ofof significationsignification unmediatedunmediated by by culture. culture. As As Gumbrecht Gumbrecht himself himself emphasizes, emphasizes, in in “a “a culture culture which which is predominantlyis predominantly a meaning a meaning culture,” culture,” presence presence is “necessarily is “necessarily surrounded surrounded by, wrapped by, wrapped into, andinto, even and mediatedeven mediated by clouds by clouds and cushions and cush ofions meaning” of meaning” (Gumbrecht (Gumbrecht 2004, p. 106).2004, Nevertheless,p. 106). Nevertheless, it is crucial it tois recognizecrucial to recognize the strong the haptic strong appeal haptic and appeal suggestive and suggestive materiality materiality of the prints of andthe prints installations and installations discussed here,discussed and thehere, degree and the to degree which theyto which arouse they somatosensory arouse somatosensory responses. responses. These aesthetic These aesthetic traits, I traits, posit, workI posit, to work counter to thecounter core experiencethe core experience of groundlessness of groundlessness and spatiotemporal and spatiotemporal disorientation disorientation associated withassociated displacement. with displacement. This is a moveThis is of a move restoration, of restoration, whereby, whereby, to quote to artist quote John artist Di John Stefano Di Stefano(2002, p.(2002, 39), “mediatedp. 39), “mediated forms of forms absence of canabsence become can significant become formssignificant of presence forms withinof presence the discourses within the of displacementdiscourses of displacement and diaspora”. and diaspora”.

4. Conclusion: Optimist Optimist Radicants Radicants A wavewave ofof German-Jewish German-Jewish immigration immigration arrived arrived in pre-statein pre-state Israel Israel (then (then under under British British mandate) mandate) in the 1930sin the in 1930s the wake in the of wake the Nazis’ of the rise Nazis’ to power. rise Immigrationto power. Immigration from Germany from encompassed Germany encompassed over 300,000 of over the 523,000300,000 Germanof the 523,000 Jewish German population Jewish counted population in 1933 counted(United Statesin 1933 Holocaust (United States Memorial Holocaust Museum Memorial 2019a), Museum 2019a), over 160,000 of whom emigrated to Israel (The Jewish Agency for Israel 2014). Compelled by intensifying anti-Semitic harassment to leave the country that they had considered their homeland for centuries, German-Jewish émigrés clung to a culture that they saw as their own in ways that would, in current immigration research, be termed transnational (Hansen-Glucklich 2017). Micha Ullman’s parents belonged to the German-Jewish strand of the evolving Israeli society.6

6 The status of Yekke (German-Jewish) artists who emigrated to Israel in the 1930s is discussed in Noa Avron Barak’s paper in this issue.

Arts 2020, 9, 73 16 of 18 over 160,000 of whom emigrated to Israel (The Jewish Agency for Israel 2014). Compelled by intensifying anti-Semitic harassment to leave the country that they had considered their homeland for centuries, German-Jewish émigrés clung to a culture that they saw as their own in ways that would, in current Arts 2020, 9, 73 21 of 24 immigration research, be termed transnational (Hansen-Glucklich 2017). Micha Ullman’s parents belonged 6 toIn thea meaningful German-Jewish coincidence, strand ofSharabani the evolving currently Israeli occupies society. aIn studio a meaningful space in coincidence, Tel Aviv owned Sharabani by a currentlyGerman-Jewish occupies entrepreneur a studio space and informer Tel Aviv textile owned manu byfacturer, a German-Jewish who arrived entrepreneur in Israel in the and 1930s former as textilepart of manufacturer,the aforementioned who arrived generation in Israel of immigrants. in the 1930s A asmassive part of German the aforementioned weaving loom, generation of cutting- of immigrants.edge technology A massive in its time, German still occupies weaving a loom, central of space cutting-edge in the studio. technology This loom in its inspired time, still Sharabani’s occupies a Conductors and Resistors centralinteractive space installation in the studio. Conductors This loom and inspired Resistors Sharabani’s (2018; Figure interactive 18).7 The installation installation draws on the rows 7 (2018;of spools Figure still 18 extant). The in installation the studio, draws forging on a the direct rows connection of spools stillbetween extant the in theartist’s studio, prowess forging in a digital direct connectionmedia and betweenthe textile the manufacturing artist’s prowess technology in digital mediathat ensured and the an textile immigrant’s manufacturing livelihood technology back in that the ensured1930s. an immigrant’s livelihood back in the 1930s.

Figure 18. Ronen Sharabani, Conductors and Resistors,, 2018.2018. Interactive installation, variable sizes.

First presented at the 2018 SXSW media art festival in Austin, Texas, ConductorsConductors and ResistanceResistance features aa human figurefigure tangled in virtual yarns issuing from serried rows of disproportionately disproportionately large spools. By By waving waving their their phones phones toward toward the the screen, visitors could create new threads and further entangle the writhing actor. The artist remarked in private conversation (14 October 2019) that the loom in hishis studiostudio recallsrecalls thethe relentlessrelentless eeffortsfforts ofof German-JewishGerman-Jewish immigrants to industrialize Israel, which waswas atat thethe timetime aa relativelyrelatively neglectedneglected andand underdevelopedunderdeveloped MiddleMiddle EasternEastern district under British Mandate. At the same time, the now-disabled machine calls attention to the decline of Israel’s textile industry under conditions ofof accelerated globalization.globalization. By now, thethe majormajor part of Israeli textile manufacture hashas migratedmigrated in in pursuit pursuit of of cheaper cheaper labor labor in Jordanin Jordan or China,or China, leaving leaving unemployment unemployment and socialand social unrest unrest in its in wake. its wake. The massiveThe massive loom, loom, Sharabani Sharabani says, issays, both is a both monument a monument to the Israelito the textileIsraeli industry’stextile industry’s heroic past heroic and apast signal and of its a implicationsignal of inits the implication global migratory in the cycle global (communication migratory cycle with the(communication author on 14 Octoberwith the 2019).author In on this 14 conjunction,October 2019). I espy In this a radicant conjunction, optimism. I espy Notwithstandinga radicant optimism. the complexityNotwithstanding of historical the complexity and political of historical entanglements, and political a thread entanglements, of determination a thread and hope of determination runs between theand creativityhope runs and between resilience the with creativity which and a refugee resilience from with Nazi which Germany a refugee participated from Nazi in establishing Germany newparticipated industries in inestablishing an old-new new homeland industries during in an the old-new 1930s, homeland and the younger during nativethe 1930s, Israeli and artist the who,younger half native a century Israeli later, artist is committed who, half toa artisticcentury production later, is committed of international to artistic caliber production from his Telof Avivinternational studio. caliber The trans-generational from his Tel Aviv and, studio. in fact, The transnationaltrans-generational life of and, the in German fact, transnational weaving loom life reflectsof the German on Ullman weaving and Sharabani’sloom reflects meaningful on Ullman encounter.and Sharabani’s Bridging meaningful the generational encounter. gap, Bridging they seem the generational gap, they seem committed to defying the unsettling aspects of the radicant condition with a strong restorative pull. This is especially manifest in the divergent yet kindred ways in which 6theyThe employ status of Yekkesand(German-Jewish) and earth, artistsmaintaining who emigrated a delicate to Israel inequilibrium the 1930s is discussed between in Noa groundlessness Avron Barak’s paper and in presence.this issue. Balanced between the insecurities of shifting ground, the transience of radicant enrootings, 7 https://vimeo.com/271306889 (accessed on 11 February 2020). and the anxiety of displacement, Ullman’s and Sharabani’s art relentlessly asserts and reasserts solid borders and grounds. Under ever-challenging existential conditions, they weigh positive mass against negative void, and shifting against solid ground.

7 https://vimeo.com/271306889 (accessed on 11 February 2020).

Arts 2020, 9, 73 17 of 18 committed to defying the unsettling aspects of the radicant condition with a strong restorative pull. This is especially manifest in the divergent yet kindred ways in which they employ sand and earth, maintaining a delicate equilibrium between groundlessness and presence. Balanced between the insecurities of shifting ground, the transience of radicant enrootings, and the anxiety of displacement, Ullman’s and Sharabani’s art relentlessly asserts and reasserts solid borders and grounds. Under ever-challenging existential conditions, they weigh positive mass against negative void, and shifting against solid ground.

Funding: This research received no external funding. Acknowledgments: The images reproduced in this paper are courtesy of the artists, Micha Ullman and Ronen Sharabani. The author thanks the artists for permissions and for sharing information and insights. Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.

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