Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 14th of March 2019
Yael Bartana, "Tashlikh (Cast Off)", 2017
Hard to know what to pick from this superb museum of modern art in Amsterdam, spilt into pre 1980 and post 1980 collections much of the work was stimulating , beautiful, absorbing, emotional and astonishing all at once. I loved visiting this place.
So what to pick for my critical dairy? In fact the work I have chosen jumped out because of its exploration of past objects and film. The suggestions of narratives against a loud and compelling sonic soundscape was profound, moving and effective. Here’s an extract from the Stedelijk’s web site.
“Through her moving image and installation works, Yael Bartana explores how cultural and national identity is reinforced through rituals, ceremonies, and social practices. Born in Israel, Bartana frequently takes her native country as a case study, considering how cultural narratives and collective memory operate within the Israeli national consciousness. Her 2017 film Tashlikh (Cast Off) takes its title from the Jewish custom of throwing bread and personal belongings into a river as a symbolic act of atoning for one’s sins. Drawing from this tradition, Bartana invited both victims and perpetrators of the Holocaust, Armenian genocide, and more recent ethnic cleansing campaigns in Sudan and Eritrea to cast off possessions that materially connect them to a traumatic past. In the work, a cascade of these objects—including clothing, framed photos, identification documents, and medals—fall across the screen in slow motion, released from an unseen height. A pitch-black backdrop creates a feeling of limitless space, disconnecting the objects from a specific time or place. The work’s ambient, echoing soundscape contributes to a sense of immersiveness, further dissolving the divisions between the space of the video and that of the gallery. Moving through the air with balletic fluidity, the free-falling items become performative actors, standing in for the people to whom they belong and visually representing the diasporas that form when ethnic groups are subjected to violence and forced migration.”