Located in central Jerusalem, about 10 minutes walk from my parents’ house at 12 Shmuel Hanagid street, is the terrific Artists’ House. Though I’ve lived in Jerusalem for many years, I’ve only visited the place to sit down for a bar-drink or high-quality cuisine at Mona, the excellent bar-restaurant at the Artists’ House first floor.
But that’s exactly what’s great about revisiting your own city after being away for so long, you get the urge to go and revisit old favorites in a new way. And so one Friday morning I decided to actually go inside and see what exhibition was playing at the moment…
… and how lucky I was to go in that day as the visiting exhibition showing at the time was beyond brilliant. It’s one of the most interesting themes I’ve come across in recent months. They were showing Ido Suliman’s Cracking in Berlin.
What’s so amazing about this exhibition? Here’s a bit from The Jerusalem Artist’s House website :
Ido Suliman – Cracking in Berlin
About the exhibition
Ido Suliman’s works range from dangerous and exciting to guilt evoking. Through a series of posters of fictive films, he challenges the well formulated collective memory of the Holocaust, disassembling and assembling the forbidden images scorched into our consciousness. Thus, the Stalag, Snuff and fetishist culture intertwines with the "Burekas" films, the stronghold of the Israeli other, churning the viewer’s stomach. The passion towards the "dark side" of our memory is reexamined through the Pop culture. Viewing the works raises the question – will the most horrific image, repeated and copied over and over, become "Pop" as well?
In his characteristic language of design, Ido presents references to the Holocaust that might be interpreted as cheapening its memorial. However, they mainly express the frustration of those who rarely have anything to do with the Holocaust but have absorbed its entire baggage: third generation people that seek to examine their place in the memory’s continuum and perhaps even succeed in unloading it.
There were no restrictions on photography, so I’m hoping it’s okay for those to show here to promote both the artist and the Artists’ House. Each of those posters is extremely intense in meaning and sarcasm. I’ll let you form your own impressions and feeling of how you relate to those…
To wrap the visit up, let’s get back to the beautiful Artist’s House, this is what the exhibition halls looks like …
A hidden jewel in central Jerusalem. Go in next time you’re in the area, you’re bound to find something wonderful running inside.
More on the exhibition :
- Satirical Revenge Fantasies: Ido Suliman at Jerusalem Artist’s House
- An alternative, highly provocative view of the Holocaust
- Ido Suliman’s Flickr photostream