Magazine

16 may 2024, Flor Linckens

Overcoming the Future with Yael Bartana

Yael Bartana, Farewell, part of Light To The Nations at the Venice Biennale. Photo: Andrea Rossetti

Until 25 May, Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam presents the video artwork 'Zukunftsbewältigung #1' ('Overcoming the Future') (2023) by Yael Bartana. This exhibition runs parallel to Bartana's presentation at the Venice Biennale: a futuristic vision of collective survival and interstellar migration. The artist is particularly interested in how societies remember their past and shape their future.

Yael Bartana is renowned for her multidisciplinary practice, which includes film, photography, installation and performance. Her work delves into themes such as national and cultural identity, underlying historical narratives, power structures, ideology, trauma, displacement, belonging and memory politics — the ways communities and political actors shape our (collective) memories. Bartana explores these elements, particularly in the context of her motherland: Israel. She is particularly fascinated by the roles of rituals, commemorations and ceremonies, as well as the role of imagination and the transformative potential of art. Her works, in which fiction and reality often blend seamlessly, frequently have a disorienting effect on the viewer. Movement also plays a significant role in her practice.

Yael Bartana, Zukunftsbewältigung #1 (Overcoming the Future), 2023, now on view at Annet Gelink Gallery

When you reach the German pavilion in the Giardini in Venice, you are overwhelmed by a dystopian feeling. The entrance is blocked by a massive mound of earth (a work by Ersan Mondtag). You might initially think it's a continuation of previous interventions by Hans Haacke and Maria Eichhorn, who destroyed the pavilion in 1993 and 2022 respectively, to address its problematic Nazi past. But after entering the pavilion using the side entrance, you feel like you've ended up in a science fiction movie. The first, green-lit room is marked by a floating spaceship installation. In the subsequent rooms, it becomes clearer what this refers to: Bartana offers us a literal escape from a world on the brink of ecological and political destruction, somewhere in the near or somewhat distant future. Her works are characterised by contrasts: optimism and pessimism, utopia and dystopia, futuristic technologies and ancient traditions.

In the video installation 'Farewell', shown in the main room of the pavilion, we see a group of women performing a choreographed ritual in which they say goodbye to Earth. A futuristic ark then takes them to a distant galaxy. Bartana frequently references the Jewish mystical Kabbalah in these works, but the rescue operation is focused on collective healing and saving a much larger community. Hope is central to that. Bartana also draws inspiration from Labanotation, a system developed in the 1920s by choreographer Rudolf von Laban. This notation system allows movement to be documented and analysed.

Yael Bartana, Farewell, part of Light To The Nations at the Venice Biennale. Photo: Andrea Rossetti

The video artwork 'Zukunftsbewältigung #1' ('Overcoming the Future'), currently on view at Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam, also refers to von Laban's practice: his expressionist dance style, ritual movements and principles of Lebensreform. The 1920s, a period of significant political, social and ideological shifts, are a major inspiration for Bartana — and not without reason. It was a time when bodily expression transformed: it became politicised on one hand, and a form of resistance on the other. Dance and movement thus become metaphors for social change and resistance. The artist also draws a parallel with the present. 'Zukunftsbewältigung #1' centers on hope, political imagination and our ability to look forward in difficult times. What is the impact of human hope on our collective future scenarios?

Bartana obtained her degrees at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design and the School of Visual Arts in New York, followed by a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. Her work has been exhibited worldwide and is included in the collections of Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, Tate, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Van Abbemuseum and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In 2011, she represented Poland at the 54th Venice Biennale, and this year she represents Germany, with a presentation that will be on view in the Giardini until 24 November 2024. The art world has responded enthusiastically to the German pavilion, which Bartana shares with Ersan Mondtag. The New York Times described Bartana's installation as “a thunderously morose ode to space operas” in the article '8 Hits of the Venice Biennale'. Other leading publications also mentioned the pavilion as a highlight, including The Art Newspaper ('The must-see pavilions in the Giardini') and ARTnews ('The 10 Best National Pavilions at the 2024 Venice Biennale').

Yael Bartana's video artwork 'Zukunftsbewältigung #1' ('Overcoming the Future') will be on view at Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam until 25 May 2024.

In this article

Flor Linckens

Free Magazine Subscription

Articles, interviews, shows & events. Delivered to your mailbox weekly.

16 may 2024, Flor Linckens

Overcoming the Future with Yael Bartana

Current shows