YAEL BARTANA Summer Camp Opening: 13/11/2008, 7 p.m. Duration of the Exhibition: 14/11/2008 - 08/01/2009 Press Release Engholm Engelhorn Galerie proudly presents the new solo exhibition of Yael Bartana (Israel, 1970). In the summer of 2006 Yael Bartana documented the fourth Summer Camp of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), Palestinians, Israelis, and citizens from various other countries joined forces to reconstruct a house in the village of Anata (east of Jerusalem) the former house of Abu Ahmed Al Hadad at exactly the same location where it was demolished by the Israeli authorities at the end of 2005. The result is a phenomenally edited 12 minutes image and sound composition in which Bartana uses the same stylistic devices as the Zionist propaganda films from the first half of the twentieth century. These propaganda films portray the realisation of the Zionist dream to found a nation-state under the motto “We came to Israel to build and to be built”. By quoting the old propaganda films Bartana’s Summer Camp show the resemblance between the ideological and visual relation of building by the ICAHD as a form of resistance against the occupation and the building of the state of Israel by the Zionist movement. Yael Bartana´s new photographic series, which refers especially to the photography of Herbert and Leni Sonnenfeld, was inspired by this kind of propaganda also. In both her video installations as well as her photographs she investigates the relationship between the individual and society, mostly in relation to her country of origin. Yael Bartana´s work explores meaning in every day life and social rituals in the construction of concepts of national identity. Yael Bartana (Isreal * 1970) Exhibitions (selection): P.S. 1, New York (2008), „Summer Camp“ Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam (2007), Foksal Gallery, Warschau (2007), „Amateur Anthropologist“, Fridericianum, Kassel (2006), Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg (2006), Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2006). For further information please do not hesitate to contact Kerstin Engholm unter +43 1 585 7337.