Ben-Gurion University of the Negev the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Department of Art History and Visual Culture
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BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY AND VISUAL CULTURE Beyond Exile: Identity and Belonging in the Work of Emily Jacir THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE Merav Berkeley Under the Supervision of: Dr. Ruth E. Iskin August 2012 I BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY AND VISUAL CULTURE Beyond Exile: Identity and Belonging in the Work of Emily Jacir THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE Merav Berkeley Under the supervision of: Dr. Ruth E. Iskin Signature of student: Date: _____ Signature of supervisor: Date: _____ Signature of chairperson of the committee for graduate studies: Date:______ August 2012 II Abstract This thesis analyzes the work of artist Emily Jacir in the context of post- colonial thought and contemporary theories of migratory, relational and political aesthetics. It examines the reception of the artist and the exhibition rhetoric surrounding her. Using this interdisciplinary model I analyze issues beyond exile, identity and belonging in the artist’s work. It will demonstrate how Jacir succeeds in transcending the local and the personal and touches upon broader complexities of contemporary life. It is argued that beyond questions of nationality and belonging, Jacir explores issues of travel, space, the movement of people, mobility, and restriction of movement. It will highlight central yet under-discussed aspects of the art-work Jacir produced over the first decade of her career, from 1998 up until the censorship of her work at the Venice Biennale of 2009. Since Jacir is most often described as a “Palestinian artist” the first chapter explains and problematizes this, relating to the historiography and contested field of Palestinian art. The second chapter examines how the understanding of Jacir as a Palestinian artist may have affected reception of her work producing a reductive and narrow reading. It suggests instead an alternative, nonessential approach. The third chapter expands on the idea of exile and the centrality of this theme to her work. It demonstrates how Jacir’s exility affords her an insightful state of “in-betweeness,” in response to which she adopts contrasting strategies of displacement and community in her art. The fourth chapter explores Migratory and Relational Aesthetics in Jacir’s practice. In examining Jacir's art and identity, this study will investigate her position within Palestinian art, as a “Palestinian artist” and the artist’s exilic perspective. Interspersed between my discussion of reception and curatorial practice are close readings of the artist’s work. My treatment of these works, the exhibitions and the reception of Jacir’s work has a discursive purpose- to address the shifting landscape of contemporary art in which questions of national identity are being replaced by others pertaining to multi-culturalism and displacement. Altogether these investigations attempt to establish a wider, hitherto under-developed reading of the artist's work. III Table of Contents Introduction and Literature Review 5 Chapter One: Belonging - Emily Jacir and Palestinian Art 12 Chapter Two: Identity - Emily Jacir as Palestinian Artist 32 Chapter Three: Beyond Exile 47 Chapter Four: The Migratory Aesthetics of Emily Jacir 61 Conclusion 83 Virtual Exhibition: The Jacir Palace Show - Return 87 List of Illustrations 98 Bibliography 100 4 Introduction and Literature Review Figure 1 Emily Jacir, Change/Exchange, 1998, detail The Peripatetic Life of Emily Jacir In the blurb surrounding Emily Jacir, the artist is repeatedly referred to as "living and working between Ramallah and New York."1 This is a reflection of the art world's positioning of Jacir within a certain political context: as a Palestinian artist working in the West. In fact, it would be more accurate to describe Jacir as living and working between many places, being constantly on the move. That certainly has been the case during the period of the artist's work investigated here: Starting from 1998, when Jacir first appeared on the international art-circuit and culminating in 2009, the year that Jacir’s work was censored at the 53rd Venice Biennale. Jacir, in her forties at the time of this study, has been moving around all her life: Born to a Christian Palestinian family from Bethlehem, growing up Jacir attended the American School in Saudi Arabia, then high school in Italy, finally completing her further education at universities in the United States. Since then she has been working and exhibiting across the globe. Jacir has 2 been on residencies in Paris, Jerusalem, Cairo, Linz, Texas, New York and Beirut. A key figure 1 For example see the blurb about the artist provided by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the artist's gallery Alexander and Bonin in New York and the mention Jacir receives at the recent 54th Venice Biennale. 2 As I write, Jacir currently holds a visiting professorship at Ashkal Alwan University, The Lebanese Association of Plastic Arts in Beirut, Lebanon. 5 in establishing the Ramallah art scene, Jacir has since attracted international acclaim through numerous Biennial’s since 2003; Istanbul 2003, The Whitney Biennial in New York 2004, Sharjah Biennial 2005, The Sydney Biennial 2006, The Venice Biennial in 2005, 2007 and 2009. This peripatetic lifestyle has greatly informed Jacir’s work. The material that exists on the artist is mostly to be found in curatorial texts and academic essays that appear in the catalogues of the group and solo exhibitions she participated in. An examination of these sources, along with the writing of critics from reviews written in response to these exhibitions, reveals the exhibition rhetoric generated around the artist. What these varied sources have in common is an almost consistent viewing of Jacir’s work through the prism of exile, identity and national belonging. The aim of this thesis is not only to expand on this but, more importantly, to transcend these confines, looking beyond these predictable insights. In 1999 Jacir began to be noticed by the international art world.3 This was thanks to a conceptual, action-based piece she created during a residency in Paris with the Cité Internationale des Arts the previous year: Change/Exchange (1998) comprised of documentary materials, including 60 photographs and receipts, one shelf and $2.45 in coins.4 The photographs (frontal shots of the Parisian exchange shops around the city) and receipts, were presented as proof of the repeated exchange by Jacir, of one hundred U.S dollars into French francs and back, until Jacir was left with $2.45 in loose change (coins are not exchangeable). The performance involved sixty exchanges in all (Fig. 1). Curator Jack Persekian, the founding director of Anadiel Gallery, the Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem (where Jacir completed a residency in 2002), 3 Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, “Her Dark Materials,” The National, Jul 13, 2008, pp. 8-9. 4 Ibid., p. 8. 6 describes his reaction to this piece upon encountering it for the first time, while flipping through the artist’s portfolio:5 It was not directly related to the Palestinian issue or cause or identity. I thought it went far beyond that. It relates to people all over the world, to the idea of crossing borders, the depreciation of things, how you lose them over time by being transient.6 I would like to test Persekian's observation and join him in seeing what goes “far beyond” the question of the Palestinians in the artist's work. By examining Jacir's art and identity and her so-called exilic perspective, this study will demonstrate how Jacir succeeds in transcending the local and the personal and touches upon broader complexities of modern life. Beyond questions of nationality and belonging, Jacir explores issues of travel, space, the movement of people, mobility, and restriction of movement. Of Change/Exchange the artist has said it was about “wandering through space and time…”7 The artist herself points to the piece Change/Exchange as a kind of turning point in her career. It was around this time that she started to adopt a more interdisciplinary approach, altogether abandoning the “pretty paintings” she did in her past as an art student majoring in painting. As is common among many contemporary artists, Jacir, dissatisfied with the limitations of painting alone, began to shift between mediums, choosing whatever form and practice best conceptually suited the idea she was trying to express. For that reason too, 1998 seems a fitting place to start a discussion of her work. For the last two decades discussions of art and cultural representation in the West have been shaped by sociopolitical realities such as post-colonialism and globalization.8 This thesis is 5 The Jerusalem Show opened a 10-day run on July 9th, 2007, showing the work of 27 artists in 17 venues throughout the old city of Jerusalem. 6 Wilson-Goldie, “Dark Materials,” pp. 8-9. 7 Stella Rollig, Genoveva Rückert, eds., Emily Jacir: Belongings, Works 1998-2003, Bozen: Folio, the University of Michigan, 2004, p. 9. 8 Erin Mcnab in her thesis "Passages between Cultures: Exhibition Rhetoric, Cultural Transmission and Contemporaneity in Two Exhibitions of Contemporary Middle Eastern Art," Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, 2008, p. 15. 7 no exception. By now social art history has been firmly established as the standard discursive framework. Since the ‘nineties the importance of feminist and post-colonialist critiques has become firmly established. Combined, these models lead to an examination of cultural representation in the art institution as "ideological."9 The development of post-colonial art-theory was closely informed by larger trends in historical and theoretical discourse.