שמחה גדולה הלילה, מוזיקה יהודית-ערבית וזהות מזרחית, ענבל פרלסון

NEVET YITZHAK
SELECTED WORKS
2003-2014
Where the Wild Thing Are
Nevet Yitzhak 2014
3 Channels Audio Video Installation, (08:00 min loop)
Nevet Yitzhak's accidental encounter with Afghan war rugs could not but capture her attention and set fire to her creative
imagination, for they are infused with the same subject matters that motivated her artistic practice from its nascence.
The Afghan war rugs, a fascinating and unique phenomenon, are a combination of traditional rug weaving technique with a
history paved with conflicts and foreign military presence. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late-1970s and a
decade of occupation, civil wars and American military intervention have yielded a plethora of war rugs.
The war rugs, the anti-war rugs and victory rugs, both spectacular and horrifying, have become sought after collector's
items in the West, the subject of research and numerous exhibitions. What started as an authentic expression of the
changing reality and landscape, a means for transmitting to the world the horrors of war and occupation, migration and
uprooting, an expression of resistance and a means of survival, had been commodified and turned into touristic
memorabilia industry. Rugs of this type served as the point of departure and basis for Nevet Yitzhak's video installation
exhibited here. In this work, the stylized images of Soviet firearms were replaced by three-dimensional models of weapons
commonly used by other armies and warzones, and their animation, created by various software, re-instills in them the
violent, destructive potential. The labor-intensive craftsmanship of weaving the rugs has been transformed into a no less
laborious digital work, and the materiality of the rugs was replaced with a projection of light. At times it seems that
spreading the digital rugs by projecting them along the walls of the gallery brings them back into the domestic intimate
space for which they were designed. The illusion is interrupted when the three-dimensional models (taken from computer
games and combat simulations) which the artist integrated into the rugs, erupt and realize the qualities of the programs
that rendered them when they embark on a carpet war accompanied by sounds of explosions and gunshots, also taken
from computer games, wreaking havoc on the non-material material of the rug (the Second World War term "carpet
bombing" comes to mind here). Like other artists before her, Nevet Yitzhak makes use of the seductive nature of animation,
as well as the aesthetics of computer games in order to express weighty subject matters in her works. The manner in which
the images of war were assimilated in the tapestry of the rugs and their animation, erasing the original images as a result,
are akin to processes of assimilation and integration of culture that entail violence and oppression on the one hand and a
struggle to preserve cultural difference and singularity on the other hand. The interest in the construction of cultural
identity and gender stereotypes in a postcolonial and post-feminist society, originate in the examination and criticism of the
Israeli state of affairs. (Text: Edna Moshenson)
Exhibitions:
2015 Recurrence, Nimac – Nicosia Municipal Art Center, Cyprus
2014 War Craft, TSR Gallery, Miami
2014 Where the Wild Thing Are, Noga Gallery, Tel Aviv
View the works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EMAQpfbTA8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlv9bMNPwMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKApLyPrxEw
Detail no. 1 from the Innocence Museum of Displaced Monuments: Luxor Obelisk
Nevet Yitzhak 2014
2 Channels Audio Video Installation, (03:20 min)
The work supported by: ARTPORT
In Detail no. 1 from the Innocence Museum of Displaced Monuments: Luxor Obelisk Nevet Yitzhak follows desire for the
enormous monument.
On July 6, 2014, the National Maritime Museum in Paris closed the exhibition "The Voyage of the Obelisk: Luxor/Paris
(1829-1936)" ("Le Voyage de L'obelisque: Louxor/Paris [1829-1936]"). With hundreds of documents, letters, artifacts,
th
models and prints, the exhibition delineated the extraordinary journey of the obelisk, which in the early 19 century was
displaced from the entrance of the Luxor Temple in Egypt, and moved to Paris, France.
th
The obelisk, with a golden tip connecting earth and heaven, was built in the 13 century BC as one in a pair of twin obelisks
which stood at the entrance to the temple of the sun god Amun-Ra until they were presented as a gift to the French people
in 1829. At the end of the grueling journey from Egypt to France, the obelisk was positioned in a festive ceremony at the
Place de la Concorde in Paris, the very spot where the guillotine once stood – the symbol of the dark side of the French
revolution – in the aim of erasing its horrible memory. Two hundred thousand people came to watch the ceremony; a
battalion of French soldiers assisted in the erection of the monument and a band played the aria "The Mystery of Isis" from
Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute.”
The journey—which took seven years and included the demolition of houses that stood in its path, sickness, long periods of
waiting for the tide, storms and disputes—made it clear that the second obelisk could not be brought to Paris. It remained
orphaned, standing by itself at the gate of the temple, lamenting the disruption of symmetry, with only the phantom of the
missing obelisk reverberates beside it like a leg severed from the body. Is it doomed to remain on its own forever? Is it still
possible to take the obelisk back from the Concorde to Egypt? And if so, what would be the meaning of the return home? Is
there even such a thing as a "natural place" for artifacts and structures? (Text: Vardit Gross)
Exhibition:
2014 Africa, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (forthcoming)
ND
2014 Non Finito, the 2 Year, ARTPORT, Tel Aviv
Installation View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdKB1uUFSE
The dance of the behind
Nevet Yitzhak 2014
2 Channels Audio Video Installation, (06:45 min)
Originating in the Ivory Coast, the Mapouka is a group dance primarily performed by women, usually with their backs to the
audience. Its most conspicuous feature is the dancers' leaning forward, while shifting their weight to the toes. In a slow
rhythm of heel-raising without hip movement, the women perform a dance which accentuates and focuses the movement
and presence of the buttocks. Despite these characteristics, which may be read as erotic, the dance is performed by women
young and old, and even by girls. The Mapouka does not differ from other prevalent dances which invoke and undermine
various perceptions regarding culture, gender, sexuality, and control in the viewers' consciousness. Thus, for example,
presentation of Mapouka on television was banned by the Ivorian military regime on the grounds that it was a harmful evil.
Fear of body politics and the power of dance, however, is not exclusive to Africa. Mark Twain denounced the Can-Can more
than 140 years ago, and popular dances such as the Twist and the Tango were initially deemed vulgar, indecent, and
dangerous. Nevet Yitzhak's work returns to the ritual origins of ancient popular dance, while relating to the Twerk dance
which has become a media phenomenon in recent years and is considered a Western version of the Mapouka (twerking is
usually performed by women to popular music in a sexually provocative manner). Yitzhak explores the affinities between
these dances, and the intricate cultural references to pelvic thrusting in terms of the objectifying gaze and self-righteous
moralization. She strips the movement until it becomes amorphous and internal, while the voiceover—alienated and cold
as anthropological research—presents the Western gaze as classifying, excluding, or appropriating. Dance is thus examined
in contexts of folklore, ideology, and apparatuses of social disciplining. (Text: Drorit Gur Arie & Avi Feldman)
Exhibition:
2014 Set in Motion, Petach Tikva Museum of Art
Installation View: http://youtu.be/pXOjo9775DQ
Orient Express
Nevet Yitzhak 2013-2014
Solo Exhibition at the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem
8 channels Audio-Video & Animation. (15:00 min loop)
In the show "Orient Express", created for and inspired by the Museum of Islamic Art, Nevet Yitzhak exhibits video and
animation works based on color reproduction photographs of artifacts from the museum's collection, originally used for
documenting, registering, and cataloguing the collection. In an age that shies away from the prevalent canons for
evaluating and cataloguing "Islamic Art", and furthermore challenges this inclusive category, Yitzhak offers in this exhibition
a reflective interpretation to the nature of the museum's collection - a collection of ancient functional and liturgical objects
- and raises questions concerning the role of the museum as a space that preserves time, and presents and conveys
knowledge. Black and white reproduction photographs of artifacts from the museum's collection - a cloth fragment, a
ceramic plate, a wooden chest, a sword, a decorated bowl, an incense burner, and a page from an illuminated manuscript,
are projected on the gallery's walls. The objects enlarged to a scale of 1:100 are presented as exemplars of Islamic art. The
act of removing the color from the photographs left an image reminiscent of archaic archival photograph from a card
catalogue of a museal collection, harking back to the days before the transition to computerized cataloguing. The
monochromaticity of the photograph flattens the image, diminishes the sensuality, power, and charm of the object, and
cancels the functional and artistic hierarchy between the different items, thus placing them on an equal conceptual level.
The use of catalogue photographs of the collection's objects allows the artist to address the mode of representation of an
archeological artistic article as a sign of a time and a period, and undermines the veneration and mystification these objects
receive by virtue of being cultural artifacts of historical value. Yet above all, this choice turns the spotlight on the basic gap
between the artistic, aesthetic, and functional object, and the academic, scholarly text written about it, which imbues it
with external interpretation that for the most part stems from a Western scholarly perspective. The methodical practice of
reconstructing, restoring, and cataloguing applied to an artistic archeological object due to its inclusion in a museal
collection, defines its place on the time line and bestows it with eternal life, yet at the same time revokes its original
functional qualities. Using animation, three dimensional model design, and digital collages edited from archival footage, the
artist rewrites the history of the exhibited objects, gives them an imagined functionality and places them in a new context
of a fabricated, fantastic-folkloristic narrative. In the exhibition "Orient Express" Yitzhak examines the conventions of
constructing the patterns of representation of Islamic art through strategies of disassembling and reassembling the visual
image, and offers an alternative iconographic reading of the objects in the museum's collection.
(Text by: Sally Haftel Naveh - Curator of the exhibition)
Solo Exhibition:
2013-2014, Orient Express, the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art, Jerusalem
Exhibition View: http://vimeo.com/106810620 password: xpress
The Concert
Nevet Yitzhak 2013
4 Channels Audio Video Installation, (12:38 min)
The work supported by:
and the Shmuel Givon Prize.
Yitzhak’s installation The Concert, specially created for this exhibition, is based on Johannes Vermeer’s famous
painting of the same name. The original painting depicts three characters engaged in the music making. In the
foreground, musical instruments lie at the foot of a table over which is draped a richly patterned rug. Behind
the musicians hang two paintings: one is a pastoral landscape, and the other – The Procuress by Dirck van
Baburen. Yitzhak recreates the painting, as a theatre backdrop, challenging the viewers and, through her focus
on nuances and marginal details of the original work, telling them a revised narrative. The Oriental rug, which
appears in many of Vermeer’s works as a prominent decorative display, suggesting its function as a marker of
economic success, is reassembled here through elaborate digital work that underscores its nature as an artifact
that undergoes a transformation in its transition from one culture to another. Whereas the figures of the
musicians are missing from Yitzhak’s work, the music – perhaps the most vital absence in Vermeer’s painting –
is brought into attendance and converses in various ways with the images Yitzhak has chosen to project within
her frames. One of these frames features edited clips from the film The Wife of an Important Man, (Zawgat
ragol mohim) Egypt 1987, staring the celebrated Egyptian actress Mervat Amin. The close-up images of simple,
everyday domestic activities are here charged with a new set of associations and perhaps also an underlying air
of menace. The second frame shows a seduction scene from the film Eve and the Wolf (Leqa ma al-madi) Egypt
1975, also starring Amin, which echoes The Procuress in Vermeer’s work. Both images address the stifling of
sexuality through a cultural act (whether it is a concert, the techniques of cinema, or the video work itself),
which for Yitzhak serves also to highlight the Orientalist perception of the East as sensual and feminine and the
way in which this perception has been used by the West to justify cultural and political mechanisms of power.
(Text Rotem Ruff and Nirit Nelson)
Exhibition 2014, The Museum Present Itself 2, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv
2013, Bill of Lading, Herzlia Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzlia
Exhibition view – Herzlia Museum 2013: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFg8Ktmlbpo
A Matter of Black & White
Nevet Yitzhak 2013
Single channel video projection on 200 gm. white paper, 8 min loop, variable dimensions.
Nevet Yitzhak's A Matter of Black & White comprises a video projection of a manipulated "Persian carpet"
image on a white paper hanging on a wall. The animated video simulated an Abaadeh carpet (a type of Persian
carpet made in the town of Abadeh in Iran) shown in black and white colors.
In this work, the original decorative elements of the carpet are moving slowly from the symmetrical white
paper, and from their original frame, towards the floor of the room. There, the elements rearranged in a new
composition leaving behind black holes. The work employs traditional aesthetic elements drawn from
"classical" Islamic art.
Group Exhibitions
2013 Beyond No-Man’s Land, Andrea Meislin Gallery, NYC
2013 Winners 2012, the Ministry of Cultural & Sport Prizes in Art and Design, Ashdod Museum of Art
2013 Fresh Paint 6, Noga Gallery’s pavilion, Tel Aviv
Star Quality
Nevet Yitzhak 2013
Single channel video projection on wall, no sound (00:15 min loop)
The works Star Quality (2012) and Ya Alby (2012) based on television broadcasts of the mythological concerts
of Umm Kulthum complement each other to a large extent. The video work Star Quality presents a "sculptural"
frame, a processed segment from a concert. The undisputable Diva of the Arabic musical world appears in fully
splendor, holding a handkerchief in her hands – her distinctive trademark, and covering her face with it.
Yitzhak deconstructs the performative act and its various components, separates and disconnect them in an
"artificial" way and moves the occurrence focal from the concert stage to the screen carpet. Although the
performance experience is present in the show, the featuring works function as a fragmentary collection of a
stage performance – a closed curtain with a imprinted memory of opening and closing, a soft echo of sound, a
treated segment from the concert, a symbolic theater stage covered with a carpet (reverberation of the carpets
that used to decorate Umm Kulthum’s stage concerts). The direct intimate encounter and the powerful
strength of the sensorial experience to be built between the singer and her fans actually do not exist. The
expectation remains unfulfilled.
(Text Sally Haftel Naveh from ‘Sun before Sunset’ exhibition at Kav 16 Gallery)
Exhibitions
2014 Firm Forms and Loose Silhouettes, with Lasse Krog Møller, 68 Square Meters Art Space, Copenhagen
2014 Pardes, Koffler Gallery, Toronto
2013 Sun before Sunset, Kav 16 Gallery, Tel Aviv
Exhibition View – Kav 16 Gallery 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9nsimsmJqU
Ya Alby
Nevet Yitzhak 2013
Single channel video projection on white curtain, stereo sound (7:36 min loop)
The work Ya Alby and Star Quality (2012) based on television broadcasts of the mythological concerts of Umm
Kulthum complement each other to a large extent. The work Ya Alby is an installation composed of a heavy
theater curtain which closes the gallery’s balcony from which sounds of cycling singing ("mawal" in Arabic) and
applauses sampled from one of the concerts erupt. The repetitive action of curtain opening and closing
screened gives life to the static curtain as if at any moment Umm Kulthum's image along with her orchestra
would present themselves before the visitor.
(Text Sally Haftel Naveh from ‘Sun before Sunset’ exhibition at Kav 16 Gallery)
Exhibitions
2014 Firm Forms and Loose Silhouettes, with Lasse Krog Møller, 68 Square Meters Art Space, Copenhagen
2014 Pardes, Koffler Gallery, Toronto
2013 Sun before Sunset, Kav 16 Gallery, Tel Aviv
Exhibition View – Kav 16 Gallery 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM97C6o0RH8
Sun before Sunset
Nevet Yitzhak 2013
Single channel video projection on white wood stage, stereo sound (2:45 min loop)
The work Sun before Sunset (2013) an animation screening on a standing stage leaning on one of the gallery
walls is presented in the center of the space. This is a screening of a schematic model, a prototype of a Persian
carpet which becomes through the digital process in to an ornamental relief decorated with stylized
geometrical and floral motives, seeming for a moment as an ancient archeological remain. The animation work
consciously and intentionally disrupts the familiar aesthetic course. The insertion of movement arouse life in to
the motives which component it violating the composition symmetry and balance. The ideal cosmic order, the
harmony and balance characteristic of this decorative perception are undermined, and as a result, a new
reciprocal relation between the ornaments is created. Constant mechanical actions of cocking, loading and
shooting along with abstract sounds, arouse associations of struggle and fight reminding the visual language
characteristic of computer games.
(Text Sally Haftel Naveh from ‘Sun before Sunset’ exhibition at Kav 16 Gallery)
Exhibitions
2014 Firm Forms and Loose Silhouettes, with Lasse Krog Møller, 68 Square Meters Art Space, Copenhagen
2014 Pardes, Koffler Gallery, Toronto
2013 Sun before Sunset, Kav 16 Gallery, Tel Aviv
Exhibition View – Kav 16 Gallery 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN-zFR9cRho
Mount Hope (she did all she could)
Nevet Yitzhak 2012
Single Channel video projection on manipulated wall carpet, stereo sound, (3 min loop)
The work is based on the stories of women landowners in 19th century Jaffa.
It focuses on Mount Hope, the site of an agricultural farm built by Shabbat observing messianic Christians from
the USA and Germany. The group was headed by Clorinda Minor, who viewed herself as a modern-day Esther
Group exhibitions
2012 Province: Visitor Center, Gan He’ir, Tel Aviv
Carpet
Nevet Yitzhak 2012
Single Channel video projection on manipulated floor carpet, (5 min loop)
1 channel projection of an Antique Oriental rug with moving animated decorations.
Nevet Yitzhak's Carpet comprises a video simulating a "Persian carpet" meticulously adorned with framed
geometric and vegetal images. The stylized images are densely arranged in a symmetric composition. The
symmetry, the frames, and the multiplicity of elements within them create an overflowing, stratified universe
whose vivid coloration and exemplary order are especially stressed. The work employs traditional aesthetic
elements drawn from "classical" Islamic art. In Islamic culture, the role of formal motifs (ornaments) and
geometric compositions is to divert attention from the corporeal to the spiritual world, and to depict the
cosmic order and divine nature. In Carpet, Yitzhak slowly and gently disrupts the fine balance, changing the
order and equilibrium. She removes some of the images from their original contexts, sending them off to hover
slowly over the carpet. The harmony disappears, and the shift and confusion highlight the sense of chaos and
lack of control. (Text by Nohar Ben Asher from ‘Supporting Actor’ exhibition)
Group exhibitions
2014 I have no one but you, Circle 1 - Platform for Art & Culture, Berlin
2012 Supporting Actor, ArtPlus Hotel, Tel Aviv
2012 Fresh Paint 5, Contemporary Art Fair, Tel Aviv
Link to view sample
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hLxNWZpkGs&feature=youtu.be
Alashan Maleish Gherak
‫علشان مليش غيرك‬
Nevet Yitzhak 2011
Audio Video Installation with a single channel projection on manipulated Tapestry (6 min loop)
A video featuring the portrait of Farid el-Atrash performing the song "No One Like You" solo is projected on an
elliptical Gobelin painted white and hung in a frame of wood and gold. The singer emerges from the
darkness, his face heavily made up like an odd death mask, and the melodramatic quality of the lyrics is
heightened and emphasized by his gestures and facial expressions. Appearing and disappearing, moving and
touching but also farcical, Atrash's theatrical singing resembles a struggle for life, ultimately dependent on an
external, separate factor. The presentation of the Gobelin within this given frame lends the work a domestic
appearance, but also majesty historically associated with the heritage and status of the figures whose portraits
are thus presented. This additional context extracts Atrash's portrait from the narrative-romantic context of
the film, articulating the complexity involved in the presentation of a portrait, any portrait, in the 21st century.
The fact that only the singer's voice is heard at certain moments, while his face is seen at others requires the
viewer to explore the fixed ways in which he is accustomed to view images or listen to sound.
(Text by Hadas Maor from ‘Shesh Besh’ exhibition)
Group & Solo exhibitions
2014 I have no one but you, Circle 1 - Platform for Art & Culture, Berlin
2011 Shesh Besh, Petach Tikva Museum of Art
2012 Fresh Paint 5, Contemporary Art Fair, Tel Aviv
Language for the Faithful (II)
Nevet Yitzhak 2011
Audio Video installation with 3 Single channel projections (loop)
An audio-visual adaptation of traditional Kurdish music combined with found footage of a traditional Jewish
Kurd wedding ceremony from the 1970s “starring” the Seven Sisters dance group. The title of the work is taken
from a book of Dr. Meir Buzaglo that deals with the notion of “faithfulness” in tradition.
Musicians: Zadik Zecharia, zurna; Yaakov Ovadia, dahol drum. Kurdish dance: Seven Sisters Company
The video installation at the exhibition is in fact a version continuing her work ‘A Language for the Faithful’, exhibited at the
Herzliya Biennial (2009). The work featured in this exhibition portrays the Kurdish-Jewish heritage using video footage of a
Kurdish wedding and traditional Kurdish music, performed especially for the artist and filmed by her. Two round windows
appear on the wall. In one window appears the zurna player (a wooden wind instrument), Tzadik Zecharia, and in the other
we see a davul drum from a bird's eye view, while the drum stick hits it sporadically. The sounds of the traditional
instruments reverberate intensely throughout the space, as the beats of the drum become faster and the zurna's trills
sweep the listeners away. At the feet of the players lies a carpet on which an archival video footage of dancers at a 1970s
Kurdish wedding is projected. The carpet becomes alive with the movement of the dancers circling it to the sounds of the
music. Yitzhak manipulated the film, creating doublings that take a kaleidoscopic appearance, as if they were a geometric
ornamental pattern of an Eastern carpet. Despite the intervention, one can still make out the throng of dancers, including
members of the Kurdish dance group ‘Seven Sisters’ in colorful traditional costumes. In the commotion of the circle of
dancers, among all the stomping, clapping, kaffiyehs and blowing cloths, raised Israeli flags come into view. These national
flags flown during a private family celebration perhaps express more than anything the split identity of immigrants from
Kurdistan, who on the one hand wished to maintain and express their loyalty to their tradition and cultural heritage, yet on
the other hand were saddled with the burden of proof of belonging to the new homeland. As an outside observer of the
not-so-distant past of the community, Yitzhak tries to portray that lost and rejected identity and examine its suppressed
origins. Alongside the portrayal of Kurdish tradition the artist wishes to neutralize this cultural heritage of it natural folkloric
context and search for a different experience. Yitzhak manipulates the footage and with a formalist-artistic action
deconstructs it to fragments and strips it of its familiar form. The new point of view creates distancing and allows the
viewer to experience the folkloric music as a genre in its own right. The sounds of the zurna are no longer a mere
accompaniment to the celebration, but rather gain their own independence and respect. Thus they are rediscovered as a
radical-esoteric music, fringe music – challenging and extraordinary.
(Text by Iris Mendel from ‘Dual Attachment’ exhibition)
Duo exhibitions
2011 Dual Attachment, a duo exhibition with Ester Schneider, Art Cube Gallery, Jerusalem
Group exhibitions
2012 GRID, bi-annual international photography festival, Amsterdam
Link to view sample
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4SuQUPywAs
Guards of the Temple
Nevet Yitzhak 2010
A site specific - Audio video installation, Gan Yaacov, Tel Aviv (5 min loop)
Next to’Gan Yaacov’ (Jacob Garden), recently renovated and newly open to the public, stand Habima Theater,
the Helena Rubinstein pavilion for Contemporary Art, and the Frederic R. Mann Auditorium (Heichal HaTarbut),
Tel Aviv’s main concert hall and the Israeli Philharmonic’s permanent residence which was inaugurated on
October 1st, 1957. Gan Yaacov, planned by Yaacov Rechter and landscape architect Avraham Karavan, was set
up on a hill planted with an ancient orchard of sycamores, part of an agricultural farm. The audio video work
was screened on the bridge connecting the two hills with the old trees. The work uses archive materials from
the 1950s which document the construction of the site.
Art event
2010 Hearing Art, audio visual pauses in the public domain throughout the city of Tel Aviv
A Great Joy Tonight
Nevet Yitzhak 2009
Ma or Single channel projection (10:43 min loop)
The Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Arabic Orchestra was established in 1948 and operated until 1993 as
part of Arabic Kol Israel (Radio D). Most of the musicians were Jewish immigrants from Iraq and Egypt who
arrived in Israel in the early 1950s. Initially, the orchestra played musical fragments which were interspersed in
quiz shows. Later on its repertoire included original music and music from the Arab world. In 1957, upon the
arrival of musician Zuzu Musa from Egypt, the Orchestra was reorganized in the form familiar to the public
from its (later) performances on national television. The Orchestra was one of the key institutions of Arabic
music in Israel, and acquired listeners from the entire region. Unfortunately, its documentation and the
historical sources concerning its activity are lacking. The title of Nevet Yitzhak’s work is drawn from Inbal
Perlson’s book by the same name. Perlson studied, for the first time, the political-historical contexts and
circumstances which led these musicians, decades after their immigration to Israel, to cling to this cultural
world and continue to live a language and music they had brought with them from their countries of origin.
Yitzhak’s work employs original IBA archival material presenting the orchestra performing in the program
“Music and Song.” Yitzhak deconstructs and reconstructs these materials. The new visual-musical work loses
some of the authenticity of the original music, yet reintroduces the tradition and the past. By lingering on a
moment in the past, Yitzhak furnishes the orchestra with a new platform.
(Text by Drorit Gur Arie from ‘A Great Joy Tonight’ exhibition)
Exhibitions
2011 Duo exhibition with Bojan Fajfric, Jeanine Hofland Gallery, Amsterdam
2009 A Great Joy Tonight, solo exhibition, Petach Tikva Museum of Art
2011 True to the Original, Bet Hagefen Gallery, Haifa
2010 Di Goldene Keyt, Dvir gallery, Hangar 2, Jaffa Port
th
2010 32 Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellier, Montpellier
Link to view sample
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srqUCu28wJE
Exhibition View – Petach Tikva Museum 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLp7ivxnek4&feature=youtu.be
Language for the Faithful (I)
Nevet Yitzhak 2009
Audio Video installation or Single channel projection (10:00 min loop)
An audio-visual adaptation of traditional Kurdish music combined with found footage of a traditional Jewish
Kurd wedding ceremony from the 1970s “starring” the Seven Sisters dance group. The title of the work is taken
from a book of Dr. Meir Buzaglo that deals with the notion of “faithfulness” in tradition.
Musicians: Zadik Zecharia, zurna; Yaakov Ovadia, dahol drum
Kurdish dance: ‘Seven Sisters Company’
Group exhibitions
nd
2009 The 2 Herzliya biennial, Herzliya Museum for contemporary art, Herzliya
Link to view sample
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_iGTnewERM
Schneckentempo - A Video Concert
Nevet Yitzhak 2007
4 channels audio video Installation (18:53 min loop)
In the present project I am using classical materials, a filmed documentation of the rehearsals of the Israel’s
Philharmonic Orchestra. I deconstructing and reconstructing them in my own way. The digital editing and
processing transform the rehearsals into a new visual-musical work that is presented to the viewer via 4
television screens, located as an alternative to a human orchestra. The new piece is inspired by the traditional
listening habits and is constructed from acoustic sounds. The two mediums, music and video, supports each
other so that a new and a special relationship develops between the sounds and the visual images. The
orchestration exists also between the monitors that function as musicians in the orchestra.
The viewers don’t experience the acoustic sound as produced by man, but are exposed to digitalized and
manipulated materials which are presented through monitors and sound systems. In the classical concert the
musician produces acoustic sounds through instruments which are manufactured according to a long and
lasting tradition. In contrast, in the video concert the images are only representations that lose their concrete
quality and the sounds which were processed by a computer lose their authenticity. Nevertheless, the new
sounds and compositions are real and perceptible and are mentally effective just like any sound manufactured
by a conventional orchestra. This way, the composition echoes the past and tradition with a feeling of
alienation but a sad loss as well.
The camera that documents the live musicians playing during the concert rehearsals is static, so that the frame
is set and only the musical instruments and musicians are moving. The camera sets the bounds of the
compositions and the musicians sets the movement in space. As a result the viewer’s experience is one of
harmony between the movement on film and the sounds played at the same moment. However, the sound
that is recorded by the camera is the sound of the filmed instrument and the sum of sounds from all the
playing instruments at the same moments and background sounds as well. As a result the correlation between
the visual images and the sounds changes and the correspondence between the image and the sound is not
complete. In addition, in the rehearsal there’s a mood of practice, forgivingness toward mistakes and lack of
control. As a result of this atmosphere, sounds that were not produced by the instruments are added to the
recording (for example, a screech of a chair, talking, the instructions of the conductor etc...). All of those are
legitimate components in the video concert.
Solo exhibitions
2007 Salame 007, Graduate Show MFA, Betzalel Academy of Arts, Tel Aviv.
Group exhibitions
2014 Double Exposure, SIP Institute for Photography, Tel Aviv
2009 Power Shows 04, Kuandu Museum, Taipei
Festivals
2010 OZ in the City, Inter-Disciplinary festival, Rothschild 69, Tel Aviv
2008 Musraramix # 8, International Festival for Art & Culture, Jerusalem 2008
Link to view sample
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMdmHnNW8Oo
Installation View
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h02vGFpGAzU&feature=youtu.be
Golem
Nevet Yitzhak 2006
Audio video installation (16:00 min loop)
This piece combines a sculpture of a child figure with a video projection.
Festivals
2005 Hagolem, Art Event, the Lab Theatre, Jerusalem.
Video Concert
Nevet Yitzhak 2005
Multiple channel audio video installation or single channel projection (21:42 min loop)
Video-concert contains images taken from found footage, mainly documentations of Israeli wars combined
with those of old Egyptian musicals. The original sounds of the footage and their editing manipulation
constructed the "musical score" of the piece. The use of found footage, extracting it from its original context
and reconstructing it in a new way, produce new ideas and association concerning the conflict and also the
strong connection between the two cultures.
Short text from the ‘Video-Zone2008’ catalogue
Nevet Yitzhak creates a "concert" played across several screens, which she constructs from a myriad of
everyday noises and sounds. The fastidious, advanced principles of non-mainstream music are dissonant with
the images exposing the noises' mundane origins, mainly in children's toys and television channels, thus
charging the high-brow soundtrack with humor, vivacity, and playfulness.
Short text by Hannah Jonkers from THE CHINA POST, February 28, 2009
'Video Concert' is a dark and reflective piece by Israeli artist Nevet Yitzhak. It contains original images and
sounds from different footage, which has been combined to form a completely new musical score. 'Video
Concert' starts in black and white, depicting scenes and sounds of guns and bombs to the backdrop of
traditional Egyptian music. However, as the video progresses, it changes completely, ending in color with
visuals and noise made by various plastic toys. The video highlights the seriousness of the past conflicts which
Israel has faced, while suggesting that light and hope will prevail in the end.
Group exhibitions
2010 G3, video exhibition at Fresh Paint 3, Warehouse 1, Old Jaffa Port
2008 No Nonsense, Herzliya Museum for contemporary art, Herzliya
2008 Borderline–Mirrorlike, Huashan Culture Park, Taipei
2007 Ketzev, Art Residence, Holon
2006 Vacation, Tarbut High School Gallery, Rishon Lezion
Festivals
th
2008 30 Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellier, Montpellier
2008 IF, Istanbul AFM International Independent Films Festival, Istanbul, Turkey
th
2007 Ctrl_alt_del, sound-art festival, concurrent with the 10 Istanbul Biennial, Turkey
2006 Musraramix # 6, International Festival for Art & Culture, Jerusalem
Link to view sample
Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWF2Yna3UYQ
Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhZT7gxDlh8
Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qAJ3LdMQuU
SALUTE
Nevet Yitzhak & Lior Fridman 2003
Single channel projection (6 min / b&w with sound)
Video manipulation that simulates an airplane crushes into the ‘Tower of David’ In Jerusalem by using archive
material from the Israeli wars and footage from September 11.
The Tower of David is the name of the ancient citadel located near the Jaffa Gate entrance to the Old City of
Jerusalem. Built to strengthen a strategically weak point in the Old City's defenses, the citadel was constructed
during the second century BC and subsequently destroyed and rebuilt by, in succession, the Christian, Muslim,
th
th
Mamluk, and Ottoman conquerors of Jerusalem. In the 30 of the 19 century the tower of David was a
museum for Palestinian folklore. After 1967 it hosted a variety of art events and in 1989 the tower was
established as a museum for the history of Jerusalem. The metaphorical destruction of the Tower symbolizes
also a destruction of culture. The black and white Processing of archive materials from the wars of Israel and
the footage from New-York in September 11 creates unification and disturbs the sense of time and space. Past
merges into present, the capital of the world merges in to the capital of all religions and the terror attack
becomes a part of a continuum of wars, violence and disasters. The film creates a sense of chaos that reflects
the chaos in a reality in which it is hard to distinguish between truth and fiction, authentic and fabrication.
Group exhibitions
2006 Czechpoint, International Exhibition & Festival of Political Art, Prague
2005 Three Cities against the Wall, TLV Artists House / ABC No Rio Gallery, NYC / Al-Hallaj Gallery, Ramalla
2003 Hearat Shulaim 6, Tower of David Museum, Jerusalem
Festivals
th
2009 Isratim, the 9 Israeli Film Festival in Paris, France
th
2004 The 21 International Film Festival, the Experimental Films Competition, Jerusalem
Link to view sample
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EADY2y6C-n8