Mouth Open, Teeth Showing
Mouth Open, Teeth Showing
Society today carries a heavy load of individual and collective traumas on its back – sights of terrorism, wars, disasters, murder and violence are taking over both our daily lives and fictional reality of films, television and computer games. Up until two decades ago, the study of trauma has largely remained the exclusive terrain of psychology, but recently, with the development of trauma studies, and especially after the 11/9 attacks, the subject of trauma has penetrated the heart of cultural discourse; philosophers and culture critics argue that trauma is a clear symptom of a wounded and a paranoid society, who is unable to contain the flood of brutal sights anymore and they end up haunting us in different ways. In his book, the historian Dominick LaCapra emphasizes the existence of collective trauma and its process, suggesting that the era that follows the collapse of modern ideologies and meta-narratives, left human life traumatic in its essence, dominated by confusion and anxiety and defining both the identity of the individual and the collective.[1]
The exhibition Mouth Open, Teeth Showing brings together three artists – Vered Aharonovitch, Orly Hummel and Liat Iris, in order to trace images of trauma through childhood world.
Images of war, terrorism and violence are not strangers to the history of western art – the genre of historical painting is known for its bloody battles depictions and dreadful scenes that often shocked the audience. It seems that as opposed to the past, contemporary art does not seek to capture historical events. Instead, it exists within a liminal space, which creates a bank of traumatic images, and which formulates feelings of pain, anxiety and awe.
Trauma Art, as it was called by art critics in recent years, is a meeting point of experiences that allegedly cannot be represented. The language of Trauma seeks to capture the essence of that experience, while walking the thin line between sight and false vision, real and imagination, the political and the personal. Trauma, as reflected in contemporary artistic creation, is an evidence of a place, a memory or an emotional energy. In that sense, expressing trauma holds a therapeutic dimension, both for the artist and the viewer, who becomes an active participant, experiencing feelings of empathy, anxiety or shock.[2]
Trauma and its representation in contemporary art is a broad subject most appropriate for a comprehensive exhibition. The purpose of this modest show, is to examine one aspect of “Trauma Art”, emphasizing the way the three artists represent trauma by using materials and the language of childhood.
Childhood is allegedly an innocent and nostalgic period of life, a refined world where the origins of knowledge and the core essence of human’s personality are formulated. The three artists are emptying the childhood world with its pure contexts, and loading it with contents of the adults’ world. This gap leads to a tremendous stress, enhancing the traumatic experience.
Childhood in Vered Aharonovitch‘s work is a disturbed and morbid arena, oozed with sexuality. With references to artists such as the Chapman brothers and Paul McCarthy, Aharonovitch smears the childhood innocent world with violent and sadistic images, revealing issues of self-destruction, anxiety and exploitation. In this exhibition, Aharonovitch presents a psychological battlefield, populated by violent and scarred little girls, maybe victims of abuse, maybe the abusive themselves, who are infected with fantasies of murder, suicide and revenge.
Untitled is a paraphrase of the horrific image of David Victorious over Goliath painted by the 16th century artist, Caravaggio. In Aharonovitch’s classic-like sculpture, the image of the boyish David replaced by an erotic image depicting a naked girl – a fierce sword is stuck between her thighs, a braided crown is adorning her head and mischievous expression of triumph is on her face, while showing a severed head of a bearded man. Like Caravaggio, Aharonovitch is presenting a mysterious and disturbed interpretation to the image of David and Goliath, implying a traumatic narrative, perhaps a wild fantasy of revenge against an abusive male.
The Warrior is a sculpture that depicts a girl in preparation for a murderous battle. The chain around her neck is made of her enemies’ severed ears, indicating well past combat experience. The push-up movements of the sculpture producing a squeaky sound, like the sound of fingernails scratching a blackboard. Aharonovitch’s warrior is ranging between seductress to a victim of abuse, inviting the visitor into a story of a brutal vendetta.
Against these two sadistic works, Aharonovuch is showing sort of a memory candle in the shape of a mourning girl. The ends of her braids are decorated with a wicks of candle, seducing the viewer to take part in a violent and destructive act, which threatening the existence of the work and of the girl herself, and so, Aharonovitch is casting away the guilt and exploitation to the viewer.
The traumatic experience in Orly Hummel‘s work translates to a dramatic spectacle of apocalyptic destruction. The Israeli curator, Amitai Mendelson, identifies catastrophic images as one of the central themes in 21st century Israeli art, arguing it is a characteristic of global anxiety from cataclysmic disasters. The 11/9 terrorist attacks, which provided one of the most horrific images the western world has ever known, not only increased the feeling of fear and awe but also inspired numerous of contemporary artists.[3]
Hummel’s work is situated within those territories of havoc and destruction, using childhood landscape and turns them to a toxic archeological arena made of iron, plaster and rubber. In this exhibition, Hummel is showing Playground, an installation composed of sliced bodies of outdated amusement facilities, which she assembled from playgrounds all over the country. The pieces are popping up from the ground as if they were graves discovered after excavations. The amusement playground is a microcosm of childhood, the act of playing assists the child to deal with fears, it gives him a better understanding of the world around him, and provides release for his repressed impulses. Hummel’s playground becomes an unstable psychological space, formulates traumatic experiences of loss, pain and anxiety.
Alongside the Playground installation, Hummel is showing another work, a swing made of rubber tire, which is cut off in its center. The violent, yet precise, dissection left the object frozen in the air, as if gravity did not respond to him, and so it becomes a kind of monumental status, preserving a presence or a horrible memory. In contrast to the buried playground, which offers a theatrical spectacle of destruction, the catastrophic element in this work, reveals only after close inspection, like a whispering drama.
Liat Iris' work deals with process of memory and remembrance while arousing feelings of melancholy, loss of direction and emotional instability. In this exhibition, Iris showing two installations, which create sort of a post-traumatic abandoned space. She is using materials relating to childhood world and transferring them through filters of the “adults’ world”.
Animated is a video/sound based object which outlines trauma as fragmented memories, more and more layers are added over time, creating a blur vision, concealing more than revealing. The installation consists of a wooden dovecot with a snorkel in its top, sort of a Habitat for memories and traumas. The object is projecting bits of past memories, creating a collage of sound and images. The sound coming out of the dovecot is Iris’s childishly voice, playing in repetitive obsessiveness with meaningless mantra words. The video is in endless loop, emphasizing the nature of post – traumatic experience, one that keeps haunting, clinging and probing, but never becomes clear but only blurrier.
Untitled is a site specific work made of sand, depicting a lunar surface, created after stormy watery forces. Nature’s cycles of death and revitalization are analogous to extreme emotional states of depletion and instability. Iris’s choice in sand is ambiguous – on the one hand, she is “playing” with the sand, transforming the gallery into a childish arena, and on the other hand, in its therapeutic context, the installation resembles to a Jungian sandbox, an object of creative play which makes unconscious processes visible.
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References
[1] Dominick LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma, 2001, Johns Hopkins University Press
[2] For further reading about “Trauma Art”:
Jill Bennett, Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art, 2005, Stanford University Press
Dana Arieli-Horowitz, Dafna Sring (eds), Scared to Death: Terror and its Manifestations in the Spheres of Art and Popular Culture, 2010, The Hebrew University Magnes Press.
[3] Amitai Mendelson, “The End of Days and New Beginnings: Reflection on Art in Israel, 1998-2007”, in: Real Time: Art in Israel, 1998-2008, 2008, Israel Museum