This is an exhibition of video works that refer to cinema: they reflect the ever-growing affinity between video and cinema in terms of production value, contents and viewing experience. The medium, which developed in the 1960s and 1970s from the world of visual art and experimental cinema while rejecting popular cinema, began developing in the 1990s a relationship of fascination and rejection, of enchantment and criticism, of re-evaluation with mainstream cinema. To use a Freudian anthropomorphism, video is at the stage where it seeks another, more glamorous parent, that it previously rejected, i.e. Hollywood.
The video works at the exhibition, dating from 2002 onwards, reflect these dual relationships: adopting the cinematic toolbox, referring to the financial and ideological mechanisms of the cinema industry, using its myths, clichés, heroes and history, all the while observing them from aside. Hollywood as an allegory and a being with a mythical existence is present in the works as a removed testimony and an attempt at self-identification through a neighboring medium, a distant relative.
The works in the exhibition offer an observation of the complex link between video, cinema and art—not only theoretically but physically, too. The high-quality big-screen cinematography, the rich enfolding soundtrack—cinema’s qualities that have made it the most hypnotic medium—are present here as raw materials. One would like to surrender to them; one would also like to ponder over the way in which Hollywood conventions have molded our worldview about emotions and passion, the way in which memory is retained and the way in which a story is developed.
The exhibition and the catalogue were made possible thanks to the generous support of:
The Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel
The French Committee of Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art
Ostrovsky Family Fund
Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia
Embassy of Switzerland in Israel
Mondriaan Fund
A donation in memory of art lover Dror Shalit, made by his wife and daughter
Danish Art Foundation
Curator: Ruth Direktor
Assistant curator: Galit Landau-Epstein
Graphic design: Avigail Reiner & Shlomi Nahmani (The Studio)
Head of Curatorial Services: Raphael Radovan
Assistant to the Head of Curatorial Services: Iris Yerushalmi
Installing and hanging: Daniel Lev
Digital Display: Solutions Roni Shubinsky
Installation: Omri Ben Artzi
Hebrew editing: Tamar Ben Yehuda
English version: Tamar Fox
Web site: Maya Benson
