[NewPacifica] Re: Made in Palestine

The Made in Palestine travelling exhibit is a project of Houston, Texas's http://www.stationmuseum.com and curated by James Harithas. They also took a video team to Palestine to document the journey of bringing the art to America, and KPFT News Director Jackson Allers of Houston was chosen to go with them in this capacity. It was much easier to display the art here in Houston than it was in the "progressive" cities. So interesting.

wendy

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CEA8B997-8674-47F8-B950-514FAF66EDAC.htm

Palestine US exhibit stirs controversy

By Linda Isam Haddad in Los Angeles

Wednesday 20 April 2005, 6:05 Makka Time, 3:05 GMT

The paintings and photographs depict Palestinian suffering

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Palestinian youths speak out with art

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A unique art exhibition showcasing the works of 23 Palestinian artists is facing uncertain times in the United States, with major museums refusing to play host.

Chronicling the modern history of Palestinians since 1948, Made in Palestine had its first showing in the United States at the Station Museum in Houston, in May 2003.

The exhibit displays the works of selected Palestinian artists from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as well as those living in exile in countries such as Jordan, Syria and Germany.

Currently on display in San Francisco, the opening attracted up to 1000 people. But alongside the accolades, it has also drawn the ire of some politicians.

As a result, most museums are fearful that hosting an exhibit that is pro-Palestinian could cost them their funding.

"I thought I had enough contacts to get this exhibit shown in museums across the nation, but I found out that even people who I considered close contacts said off-the-record they would lose their museum funding if they were to hold an exhibit that was pro-Palestinian," lamented James Harithas, curator of the Made in Palestine exhibition.

Once the current show draws to a close on 21 April, organisers suspect it could be curtains for the exhibition.

Negative imagery

"We are dealing with immense ignorance here and it's unfortunate that people have one image of Palestinians and automatically deny anything created by the Palestinian people," Harithas told Aljazeera.net.

Funding for the art exhibit has
been hard to come by

Other art connoisseurs shared his dismay.

"It is absolutely tragic the exhibit is only showing in San Francisco for a short time," said Samia Halaby, a Palestinian artist and retired professor of Yale University's school of art.

In an effort to raise funds for a future showing of the exhibit in New York, Halaby's al-Jisser (Bridge) organisation staged a slide show in November 2004 of the artwork displayed in the Made in Palestine art exhibit.

"We are living in a country where anything that is critical of Israel and is pro-Palestinian is not accepted and this is very problematic, especially when we are dealing with art," Uda Walker, political education director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, told Aljazeera.net.

New York protest

Two New York legislators and an assemblyman protested against the fundraiser in written statements, calling the exhibit a promotion of terrorism and anti-American as well as anti-Israel.

Ammo Box is meant to highlight
Israel's military superiority

Legislators George Oros and Jim Maisano said the fundraiser promoted offensive art that glorified terrorism.

Assemblyman Ryan Karben called on county executives to cancel the fundraiser, because the artists' works promoted terrorism and violence.

"There are also displays of violence that the artists claim are showing the proud Arab masses standing up to advanced ammunition of the Israelis using only stones. An ammunition box that would normally hold bullets for M-16 rifles is filled with rocks," Karben said in a written statement.

"This is how ridiculous the situation is," Walker told Aljazeera.net, explaining that Raji Cook's Ammo Box is a pun on weaponry, communicating that Palestinians only have stones and rocks as their weapons in this conflict, compared to Israel's array of weapons.

"Yet some right-wing politicians will call the piece of art a glorification of violence," Walker said.

Show goes on

But undeterred organisers say the show must go on.

Harithas, convinced about the Palestinian cause, said: "Palestinian art with all its passion needed to be displayed and viewed in the United States."

Halaby, meanwhile, has helped to raise $25,000 in the hope that the exhibit debuts in New York.

About $100,000 is required to rent space for the exhibit.

Paul DeRienzo wrote:

In Response To: Pacifica ED Addresses NFCB Conference (Greg Guma (tlg))

Join Paul DeRienzo & Miss Joan Marie Moossy on Let Them Talk. Palestinian artist Samia
Halaby is our guest tonight Tuesday, April 25, 2006 at 8 PM eastern time on Manhattan
Neighborhood Network Channel 56 and on the Internet at mnn.org click on channel 56.
Samia Halaby is currently exhibiting with other Palestinian artists in a show titled Made in
Palestine a show of contemporary Palestinian art. She'll be discussing the show and the
political and artistic situation in Palestine.

See the exhibit at
THE BRIDGE GALLERY
521 W. 26th St. 3rd Floor
New York City

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

July, 1996

Samia A. Halaby

Samia A. Halaby was born in Jerusalem, Palestine, in 1936. In 1948, Israeli aggression
forced her family's emigration to Beirut, and in 1951 the family settled in Cincinnati. Thus,
her higher education took place in Midwestern Universities. After graduate school, she
taught for eighteen years, the last ten of which were at the Yale School of Art. In addition
to teaching, Halaby was often invited to lecture at other universities. Her record includes
solo and group exhibitions in private and museum venues as well as the performance of
her electronic art both here and abroad. Among the museums which own her painting are
the Guggenheim Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Institute Du Monde Arab in
Paris.

Halaby makes analytically abstract paintings which reflect the cacophony of present reality.
This work first developed in isolation along complex geometric lines. Afterwards,
international traditions such as Cubism and Constructivism as well as such American
painters as Stuart Davis, Mark Tobey, and Jackson Pollock asserted their influence. Themes
in her work narrate the motion and speed of our environment. They help us to understand
the signals of pleasure and danger of a city or the complexities of modern information.
For example one painting titled "One Yard Pas The Shingle Factory" alludes to the jangle of
manufacture while it pays homage to Marcel Duchamp. In her recent abstraction
inspiration is derived from soft natural form such as trees, the effects of wind on groups,
or the motion of large crowds of people. In "Green Flamenco" once can sense perhaps a
crowd, or wind rustling tree leaves, or possibly things floating on the surface of a lake in
the forest.

Halaby works with oil on canvas as much as with drawing media on paper. As a colorist,
she still uses oil when she seeks precision in color relationships, but often utilizes acrylics
in her assemblage as it permits a more impulsive attitude and less rigorous demands on
cutting and stitching canvas after it has been painted.

Due to her persuasion that art must utilize the most advanced technologies available, she
began exploring digital and electronic media in the mid 80's after years of dreaming of it.
In the end, she wrote a program which she uses to do live performance of abstract
paintings in collaboration with musicians. Called Kinetic Painting, this program transforms
the computer's keyboard into a painting piano creating shapes that expand, break, have
variable speed, and rhythm.

Samia Halaby has written many essays on art and occasionally writes about her own work.
After interviewing 46 Palestinian artists, she published a book titled "Liberation Art of
Palestine.