Yael Bartana:...and Europe will be stunned

The Israeli artist brings the dream of a multinational community and new Polish society to the Venice Biennale.

With the deadlock that Israel faces with Palestine—occupation leading to state-sponsored segregation—many intriguing speculations on a possible new Jewish state have sprung in recent years. Artist Ronen Eidelman has come up with the idea of a Jewish state in Weimar, launching a series of conferences in Germany; historian Ofri Ilany suggested the Great-Egyptian Jewish-Palestinian identity and the bi-sexual state; philosopher Udi Edelman has begun a project of evoking and mapping the history other narratives for a Jewish state (in Madagascar, Alaska, Argentina and more); and artists Tal Adler and Osama Zatar have opened in Vienna an embassy for the future One State in Palestine/Israel.

Yael Bartana's highly speculative trilogy following the activities of her Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP), follows this logic, yet it differs from them, by activating and collaborating with local agents—making it a Polish project, as much as it is Israeli. This project has been to some extent already actualized with her representing Poland for the 54th International Art Exhibition in Venice (curators: Sebastian Cichocki and Galit Eilat). The 41 year old Israeli artist is the first non-Polish artist to represent Poland in the history of the Biennale. She has concocted the JRMiP formulating its manifesto together with Cichocki, calling for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to the land of their forefathers.

Top and above: Yael Bartana, <i>Zamac</i> (<i>Assassination</i>, 2011). Production photographs by Marcin Kalinski. — Top and above: Yael Bartana, *Zamac* (*Assassination*, 2011). Production photographs by Marcin Kalinski.

Bartana's trilogy includes Mary Koszmary (which means Nightmares in Polish, 2007) in which Slawomir Sierakowski, founder and editor of the Left-wing Polish periodical Krytyka Polityczna [The Political Critique] makes a speech in the ruins of the Stadion Dziesieciolecia [Stadium of the Decade] in Warsaw, which was erected in 1955 to mark the first ten years of the Communist State. At this deserted Sierakowski makes a speech, which he wrote in conjunction with the sociologist and cultural researcher, Kunga Dunin, in which he calls on the Jews to return to Poland. Adopting the aesthetic components and the standpoint of Leni Riefenstahl, Bartana reproduces Sierakowski's words as they echo through the deserted stadium. Space, the body and language which were divided between Aryan Germans and the Jews while mirroring each other—ghetto and extermination camp for the Jews; Lebensraum (living space) and stadium for Aryan Germans. In Bartana's film, the Jews are invited to the stadium. In his speech Seriakowski calls: "Come! Come and let us live together! Let us be different, but let us not hurt one another!"

<i>Mary Koszmary</i> (<i>Nightmares</i>, 2007). Production photograph by Piotr Trzebinski. Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw. — *Mary Koszmary* (*Nightmares*, 2007). Production photograph by Piotr Trzebinski. Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw.

In Mur i wieza (Wall and Tower, 2009), the second film in the trilogy, again a structure plays a main role. As we hear Sieriakowski's speech:
"Jews, return to Poland, to our land and your land! Heal our wounds and your wounds will be healed! We shall be together again! This is a call not to the dead, but to the living. We want three million Jews to return to Poland, to live with us again! We need you! We ask you to come back!"
we see a group of men and women in work clothes, march on the heart of Warsaw against a background of the Polish anthem. The group, which looks like a combination of Zionist pioneers, Soviet revolutionaries and members of Gadna (the Israeli junior cadet movement) are armed with timber beams and planks, ropes and tools to house the returning Jewish population and to answer the call in Mary Koszmary. Against a background of shouts of encouragement from the leader of the group, and while Sierakowski's voice is still echoing round the stadium, construction on the site is gradually taking place (echoing Soviet propaganda aesthetics).

Young Jews are learning Polish again, this time in a camp that resembles both a concentration camp with barbed wire and a watchtower, but also a the type of building known as "Wall and Tower", a mid-twentieth century Zionist prototype of a settlement aimed to establish Jewish life in Palestine. The Jewish settlement in the heart of Warsaw blends different narratives of pioneers and partisans, Kibbutz and anti-Semitism, Soviet and Nazi history, Zionism and the Jewish Holocaust.

By realizing the trilogy, a new political movement has been established by the artist. Bartana's movement has become a concrete project with her representing Poland.

<i>Mur i wieza</i> (<i>Wall and Tower</i>, 2009).
Production photographs by Magda Wunsche & Samsel.
Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam and Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv. — *Mur i wieza* (*Wall and Tower*, 2009). Production photographs by Magda Wunsche & Samsel. Courtesy Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam and Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv.

These highly saturated histories, images and narratives culminate in the new film closing the trilogy, Zamach (Assassination). In this film, Bartana brings the dream of multinational community and a brand new Polish society to the ultimate test. The film takes place in a near future during the funeral ceremony of the leader of the JRMiP, who has been killed by an unidentified assassin. It is by means of this symbolic death that the myth of the new political movement is unified—the candles of the mourning youths commemorating their leader takes the shape of the movement's emblem, designed by Bartana—the Polish coat of arms, an eagle and crown on a background of half a Shield of David. By realizing the trilogy, a new political movement has been established by the artist. Bartana's movement has become a concrete project with her representing Poland. For now, the movement found its place at the Giardini in Venice. Who knows where history will take it next....
Joshua Simon

Polish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale
4 June–27 November 2011

Yael Bartana, photograph by Daniel Meir.

Yael Bartana:...and Europe will be stunned

The Israeli artist brings the dream of a multinational community and new Polish society to the Venice Biennale.

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