17 Apr Artist Ruth Patir Closes Israel Pavilion Pending Ceasefire | News
Source Credit: Content and images from Ocula Magazine. Read the original article - https://ocula.com/magazine/art-news/artist-ruth-patir-closes-israel-pavilion/
‘I prefer to raise my voice with those I stand with in their scream, ceasefire now, bring the people back from captivity. We can’t take it anymore,’ Patir shared on Instagram.
A printout posted on the Iceland pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2024. Photo: Ocula.
The work is finished and the installation complete, but the Israel Pavilion will not open its doors when the Venice Biennale opens to the public on Saturday.
A poster on the glass of the pavilion reads, ‘The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition when a ceasefire and hostage release agreement is reached.’
Artist Ruth Patir, who was born in New York in 1984 and is based in Tel Aviv, shared the thinking behind her decision, made with curators Tamar Margalit and Mira Lapidot, in an Instagram story.
‘I feel that the time for art is lost and I need to believe it will return,’ she wrote. ‘We (Tamar, Mira, and I) have become the news, not the art. And so if I am given such a remarkable stage, I want to make it count. I have therefore decided that the pavilion will only open when the release of hostages and ceasefire agreement happens.’
‘I firmly object to cultural boycott, but since I feel there are no right answer[s], and I can only do what I can with the space I have, I prefer to raise my voice with those I stand with in their scream, ceasefire now, bring the people back from captivity, she continued. ‘We can’t take it anymore.’
Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and capturing another 240, according to Israeli officials. Israel’s retaliatory strikes have reportedly killed more than 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Patir’s exhibition, titled (M)otherland, includes digitally-animated video of fertility goddesses, some missing limbs, wailing in emotional pain.
Handling broken fertility statues during a visit to the Israel Antiquities Authority storerooms, Patir told The New York Times, ‘it was almost triggering seeing these broken women in relation to all the images on the news.’
While the pavilion’s doors are locked, one of the video works can be viewed through a window.
Activist group Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA), whose supporters include Nan Goldin and 14 artists representing their countries at the biennale, said the pavilion’s conditional closure was insufficient.
On their Instagram, they said, ‘ANGA does not applaud empty and opportunistic gestures timed for maximum press coverage, and leaving video works on view to the public, while Palestinians are killed by Israel every hour and millions face imminent famine.’
Little progress has been made towards ending violence in the region, but Patir hoped the pavilion would open before the Biennale ends on 24 November.
‘I believe we will open it,’ she said. —[O]
Source Credit: Content and images from Ocula Magazine. Read the original article - https://ocula.com/magazine/art-news/artist-ruth-patir-closes-israel-pavilion/