HU Credits: 2

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: History of Art

Semester: 1st Semester

Teaching Languages: English

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr. Noam Gal

Coordinator Email: noamaf@gmail.com

Coordinator Office Hours: Tuesday 10:30-12:30

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Noam Gal

Course/Module description:
Israeli Art in the Third Millennium explores the recent developments in the practice of Israeli artists and the reception of their works in the international and local arenas. The course investigates major exhibitions and art projects from the last twenty years, from painting, video and installation-art to sound and performance, all relating to some aspect of the social and cultural life in Israel. The historical context of the changing political and social conditions in Israel of this period will be given central role in our discussion. At the same time, the analytic method of the course rests on unfolding the thematic and aesthetic roots of these contemporary artworks, by going back to earlier chapters in the history of Israeli and Jewish cultures. Each session in this seminar proposes an intersection between an artwork, seen live in its museum setting, at the artist's studio or other public or interactive space, and an archival research of a relevant cultural phenomenon by which the artwork would be analyzed.

Course/Module aims:

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Students of this course will be introduced to key artworks and artists from the last 20 years of Israeli and Palestinian art, while acquiring critical and historical tools for analyzing trends in the art of this period.

Attendance requirements(%):

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:

Course/Module Content:
SESSION 1 : Introduction
SESSION 2: Israeli art and the question of Israeli identity
SESSION 3: Israeli art and art in Israel since the second Intifada: spaces for display, and the display of space
SESSION 4: Yael Bartana; Leah Bergstein and Early Hebrew Folk Dance
SESSION 5: Roee Rosen; Moshe Gershuni's Jewish symbolism; Hanoch Levin and Israeli Satire
SESSION 6: Guy Ben-Ner; Uri Zohar and Israeli nonsense cinema; Alexander Granovksy
SESSION 7: Sigalit Landau; Ezra Orion and landscape art; Itzhak Danziger and nationalist conceptions of nature
SESSION 8: Sharif Waked; David Tartakover and critical visual communication; Ze'ev Raban
SESSION 9: Zoya Cherkasski-Nnadi; Gershon Knispel and Israeli Social Realism; Hebrew translators of Russian literary realism
SESSION 10: Yehudit Sassportas; Absalon and Mizrachi nomadism; Rujum ElHiri
SESSION 11: Anissa Ashkar; Adina Bar On and the marginality of Israeli performance; Islamic Calligraphy in Palestine
SESSION 12: Ron Amir; Ya'akov Shofar and the Black Panthers; Khalil Ra'ad and early Palestinian photography
SESSION 13: Gal Weinstein; Peter Merom and iconic photography; Rachel Bluwstein's national poetry of doubt
SESSION 14: Jumana Emil Abboud; Pinchas Cohen Gan and actions on borders

Required Reading:
Ginzburg, Herbert, Mitchell, Reese, and Handler-Spitz. "Inter/disciplinarity," Art Bulletin, vol. 77(4), December, 1995, 534-552.
Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”, in Rutherford, J. (ed.). Identity: Community, Culture, Difference. London: Lawrence & Wishart. 1990. Pp. 222-237
Boyarin D. and Boyarin J., “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity”, Critical Inquiry, vol. 19, summer 1993, pp. 693–725
עזמי בשארה, "בין לאום לאומה: הרהורים על הלאומיות", תיאוריה וביקורת 6, 1995, עמ' 19-43
שרה ברייטברג-סמל, דלות החומר כאיכות באמנות הישראלית, תל אביב: מוזיאון תל אביב לאמנות, 1986
Vered Vinitzki-Seroussi, "The Decade of Indifference: 1998-2007", in Real Time: Art in Israel 1998-2007, The Israel Museum Jerusalem, 2008, 11-15.
Ariella Azoulay, "With Open Doors: Museums and Historical Narratives in Israel's Public Space", in: Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, Irit Rogoff and Daniel Sherman eds., University of Minnesota Press 1994, 85-107.
אריאלה אזולאי, "בדלתיים פתוחות: מוזיאונים להיסטוריה במרחב הציבורי בישראל", תיאוריה וביקורת 4, 1993, 79-95
Pantenburg, V. “Loudspeaker and Flag: Yael Bartana, from Documentation to Conjuration“, Afterall, 30, Summer 2012, 48–61.
Udi Edelmann, “Till Imagination Takes Us Back: A Conversation with Yael Bartana”, Ma’arav 12, spring 2012. Available online (English and Hebrew).
Amnon Raz-Karkotzkin, “Exile Within Sovereignty”, in: The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept, Benite, Geroulanos and Jerr eds., Columbia University Press, 2017, 393-420.
Adi Ophir, "On Sanctifying the Holocaust", in: Impossible Images: Contemporary Art After the Holocaust, eds. Shelley Hornstein, Laura Levitt, and Laurence J. Silberstein (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 197-199.
Ray, Gene. “Mirroring Evil”, Third Text, 17(2), 2003, pp. 113–125
Tami Katz-Freiman, “Don’t Touch My Holocaust—Analyzing the Barometer of Responses: Israeli Artists Challenge the Holocaust Taboo”, In: Impossible Images: Contemporary Art After the Holocaust, eds. Shelley Hornstein, Laura Levitt, and Laurence J. Silberstein (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 129-156.
Yoseph Milman, “On Alienation in Hanoch Levin’s Theatre of Protest”, Hebrew Studies 35 (1994), 65-97
אריאלה אזולאי, "מי היה מאמין, אתה קורא גרמנית!", תיאוריה וביקורת 15, 1999, 49-62
Nitzan Ben-Shaul, "The Euphoric Decade: Vulgar Poetics and Dishonesty in post-1967 Israeli Films", Journal of Modern Jewish Studies vol. 4(2), 2005, 233-242.
Alexander Granovsky, Jewish Luck, 1925, 100' film, B&W silent with English translated intertitles, (based on a play by Sholem Aleichem). Available online.
Thom Donovan, "Conversation with Guy Ben Ner", BOMB, vol. 111 Spring 2010, 30-37.
Na'ama Klorman-Eraqi, "Hijacking IKEA: subverting consumer culture in the family in Guy Ben-Ner's Stealing Beauty", Third Text vol. 34(6), 2020, 671-685.
W.J.T. Mitchell, “Holy Landscape: Israel, Palestine and the American Wilderness”, Critical Inquiry 26(2), 2000, pp. 193-223
Tim Ingold, "Landscape or Weather-World", in: Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description, London and NY: Routledge, 2011, pp. 126-135.
שרה חינסקי. "שתיקת הדגים: מקומי ואוניברסלי בשיח האמנות הישראלי", תיאוריה וביקורת 4, 1993
גדעון עפרת. "ויכוח שתיקת הדגים: גולאג בעין שמר", תיאוריה וביקורת 5, 1994
Gil Z. Hochberg, "Check Me Out: Queer Encounters in Sharif Waked", GLQ Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, vol. 16 (4), 2010, 577-598.
Yazan Khalili, “Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Noise”, eFlux Journal 97, February 2019, online
Farid Abu-Shakra, The Identity of the Palestinian Artist, Um ElFahem Art Gallery, 2015, pp. 23-52
פריד אבו-שקרה, "זהות האמן הפלסטיני: בין מסורת, תרבות, מודרנה וגלובליזציה", זהות האמן הפלסטיני, הגלריה לאמנות אום אלפחם, 2015, עמ' 83-107
Anna Prashizky, "Immigrants' Ethnic Provocation in the Art Created by the Russian Israeli Generation 1.5", Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 44 (2), 2021, 215-233.
Yael Guilat, "Living Room and Family Gaze in Contemporary Israeli Art", Israel Studies 24(1), 2019, 24-53.
גילה בלס, ריאליזם חברתי בשנות ה-50, מוזיאון חיפה לאמנות, 1998
Yehudit Sassportas, Seven Winters, Israel Museum Jerusalem and Hatje Cantz, 2013.
Susanne Pfeffer, Absalon, Berlin: Walter Koenig and CornerHouse Publications, [excerpts].
Almog Behar, "I am one of the Jews", trans. Vivian Eden, in: Take This Poem and Copy It: selected poems and stories, 2017, 154-161 [available online here: https://almogbehar.wordpress.com/english/ ; the Hebrew original follows in the same file].
אלמוג בהר, אנא מן אל-יהוד: קובץ סיפורים 1996-2008, בבל, 2008, עמ' 55-64
Daphna Ben-Shaul, “The Performative Return: Israeli and Palestinin Site-specific Re-enactments”, New Theater Quarterly 32(1), 2016, pp. 31-48.
Dror Harari, "From Object to Performance in Israeli Art", TDR 62(4), winter 2018, 41-63.
דרור הררי, "אל מקורות המיצג: צמיחתה של אמנות פרפורמטיבית בישראל בשנות השישים", זמנים 9, 2007, עמ' 75-83.
Nissim Gal. “Bare Life: The Refugee in Contemporary Israeli Art and Critical Discourse”, Art Journal, 64(4), pp. 24–43
Noam Gal, "Ron Amir, Involved in Photography", in: Doing Time in Holot, Israel Museum Jerusalem, 2016, 108-120.
Boaz Neuman, Land and Desire in Early Zionism, trans, Haim Watzman, Massachusetts: Brandeis, 2011.
בועז נוימן, תנועת החלוצים, תל אביב: עם עובד, 2009
טלי תמיר, "קירות טחובים: גרשוני 1980, ויינשטיין 2017", ערב רב, 7.6.2017
Emily Jacir and Susan Buck Morss, 100 Notes, dOCUMENTA 13, Hatje-Cantz, 2012, 1-20
שרה חינסקי, "עיניים עצומות לרווחה: על תסמונת הלבקנות באמנות הישראלית", תיאוריה וביקורת 20, 2002
אלן גינתון, העיניים של המדינה: אמנות חזותית במדינה ללא גבולות, תל אביב: מוזיאון תל אביב, 1998, 25-58.

Additional Reading Material:

Grading Scheme :
Essay / Project / Final Assignment / Home Exam / Referat 70 %
Attendance / Participation in Field Excursion 30 %

Additional information:
the course is delivered in English