MIKI KRATSMAN
ALL ABOUT US
6 March–17 April 2011
Opening Event
Saturday, 5 March 2011, 7 p.m.
Welcome: Ursula Blickle
Talk by: Nicolaus Schafhausen and Miki Kratsman
Mühlweg 18
D-76703 Kraichtal-UÖ
T +49 7251 60919
F +49 7251 68687
www.ursula-blickle-stiftung.de
Opening Hours:
Wed. 2–5 p.m.
Sun. 2–6 p.m. and by appointment
Miki Kratsman’s photographs document the development of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and its consequences on the daily life of the civil population, whose everyday life has been marked by oppression for decades. Through his work as a press photographer over the past 20 years, Kratsman has gained access to locations that are normally unapproachable for the public in Israel and that are generally completely unknown to the international media.
Whereas at first journalistic documentation was at the foreground of his work, Kratsman is today primarily interested in “shooting images of everyday life” that show people in an emotional interaction within complex reality, which is shaped by ever-new forms of violence, caused by the politics of colonies, but also by hope.
In addition to Miki Kratsman’s comprehensive archive, the exhibition focuses on new work that selects the Bedouin population as a central theme. The Bedouin – a minority of the Arabic minority in Israel – have attracted increasing interest in the last years, both from the media and from state-run institutions. The process of integration of the Bedouin into Israeli society occurs on two levels – the formal one, i.e. through governmental policy, and the informal one, i.e. through changing relations with Israeli society in general and Jewish society in particular.
The process is marked by a number of conflicts within this cultural group: The transition from a traditional, conservative society of the Bedouin—who until one generation ago lived a nomadic life—towards an urban way of living and the orientation within power structures, the very opposite of a nomadic tradition. This creates new forms of poverty and criminality and means at the same time abandonment of values, customs and their previously self-contained economic system. The sensation of deprivation often yields objective problems and conflicts that bring with them dramatic socio-political changes. As in his earlier series, Kratsman established close relationships with the people he portrays.
Curated by:
Nicolaus Schafhausen, (director, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam);
Assisted by Amira Gad, (assistant curator, Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam).
Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
Authors: Nicolaus Schafhausen, Vanessa Joan Müller, Dana Arieli Horovitz, and Raphael Zagury-Orly.
Closing Event
April, 17, 2011, 4 p.m.
Lecture and conversation:
Dr. Hannelore Paflik-Huber, art historian, Stuttgart
Press Information
Dr. Hannelore Paflik-Huber,
Phone +49 176 23622819
presse@ursula-blickle-stiftung.de
Press Images
Images will be made available on the foundation’s website: www.ursula-blickle-stiftung.de
Preview
Please reserve by telephone or fax:
Phone +49 7251 60919,
Fax +49 7251 68687
*Image above:
Courtesy of the artist; Chelouche Gallery, Tel Aviv.
