"Palestine unites the joys of this world and of the other; whoever is of this world and aspires to the other, will in Palestine be able to feel the appeal of that other world and whoever is of the other world will find in Palestine all the good of which this world is capable"
Al-Muqadasi, 10th century
The earthly paradise described in the words of the medieval Arab geographer is one of the most fought-over stretches of land in history. Cradle of monotheism and land of holy sites to three world religions, Palestine has witnessed an endless file of armies passing through and trying to gain control of its land, all of them bringing their own artistic and cultural elements with them and thus adding to the diversity of the cultural landscape of Palestine. This is witnessed by its rich artistic and architectural heritage.
For the past sixty years, Palestine and its inhabitants have undergone a period of extreme hardship, with the year 1948, the "Nakba" (=catastrophe) representing a monumental lieu de mémoire that divides Palestinian collective memory into two diametrically opposed entities: The pre-Nakba idealized Paradise Lost and the trauma of post-Nakba expulsion, exile and desparation.
In Palestinian Identity building, the Nakba holds a central role. In the post-Nakba era, Palestinian identity has been experiencing severe pressure, both due to Zionist ideology's attempts to negate the existence of a Palestinian people (Golda Meir's famous statement of 1968 "there are no Palestinians" is the most often quoted, but not the only one of its kind), but also due to the wide geographical dispersion of Palestinian exiles. The necessity to hold on to identifying symbols, both in lived culture and art, becomes a matter of cultural survival and is paralleled in Palestinian artistic production. Palestinian artists have always seen their role as chroniclers of Palestinian life and identified strongly with the Palestinian cause. Their art is highly symbolic and reflects the burning issues of expulsion, occupation, exile and alienation.
The first Palestinian artist to address distinctly political issues was the painter Ismail Shammout. At an exhibition of his work in Gaza in 1953, he inaugurated a movement, that is sometimes termed "Liberation Art" (defined as a distinct art movement by Samia Halaby in "Liberation Art of Palestine. Palestinian Painting and Sculpture in the Second Half of the 20th Century", New York 2003). His ideas were soon taken up by well known artists such as Suleiman Mansour, Ibrahim Ghannam and Abdul Rahman Al-Muzayen. The "Liberation Art" movement dealt mainly with the trauma of the Nakba with two major tendencies: The trauma of expulsion and massacres leading to exile on one hand and on the other, the idyllic, idealized pre-Nakba Palestinian land, showing villages with their celebrations and easy everyday life in a fertile landscape. But even these seemingly naive landscapes are heavy with symbolism. Distinctive trees and plants like olives and lemon trees are common symbols of the homeland, the Palestinian soil that was so strongly longed for. Women in traditional embroidered costumes become allegories of the fertile motherland. Historic and archaeological symbols, taken from the rich visual tradition of region confirm the attachment throughout the ages of the Palestinians to their land.
The two mentioned tendencies were prominent in Palestinian artistic production until a turn away from the topic of Palestinians as refugees and powerless victims towards strong and forceful freedom fighters took place after the creation of the PLO. For many artists this meant a switch from weakness towards strength, in a sense from despair towards hope, but exactly this focus on strength and armed resistence was criticized by many intellectuals. In their opinion, it only confirmed Western prejudices of the Palestinian terrorist. This affinity of artists to the fight for freedom has led the Israeli forces to take actions against a number of Palestinian artists, such as forbidding the use of the colours of the Palestinian flag (this has led to the joke, that a watermelon in the home of a Palestinian is forbidden). Many artists have been imprisoned, had their studios ransacked and been hindered from attending exhibitions and events.
After the outbreak of the first Intifada, the recording role that artists had hitherto fulfilled was taken over by mass media; in their own words, artists now felt free to pursue their art as individuals. A new visual language came into being, often using local, alternative materials like mud, straw, driftwood, henna etc. in an attempt to create a truly unique "national" art. The national character of art switched from being inherent in the imagery to the materials and techniques used in the creative process; at the same time, the national aspect became more reflective and personal and distinctly political themes fell out of use.
The reasons for this change should probably be sought in different factors. The Intifada was only one of them; another reason probably lies in the "Liberaton Art" movement itself. The drive and energy so characteristic of the early years was largely absent later, possibly due to a lack of renewing force inside the movement itself and the restrictive choice of subject matter. Another important factor seems to have been the critique voiced by intellectuals like Edward Said who criticized what he called "a worship of fetishized military postures" for being contra-productive in the efforts to obtain understanding for the Palestinian cause among the international public (Edward Said: After the Last Sky, London 1986).
Mahmoud Darwich's words referring to poetry might also be applied to the "Liberation Art" movement, "if you know how to break through the present moment to a sort of absolute, to fuse reality with the imagination, you can prevent your poem from falling into mere actuality. The hardest thing of all is to avoid being a captive of the present" (Mahmoud Darwich: A Love Story Between an Arab Poet and His Land, Journal of Palestine Studie 31, Spring 2002). This is exactly the danger of political art, to remain confined to a specific moment in time. And thus loose significance once reality has moved further (unless the goal has been reached, of course). With the new practices mentioned above the importance of distincly political art died out and were to be revived in a sense by a generation of young Palestinian artists, many of them born in exile or used to lives as exiles from a very young age. They have succeeded in renewing the tradition of political Palestinian art, this time using a contemporary, international artistic language and have thus succeeded in bringing the Palestinian cause to the forum of the international art world.
Often their concerns are the same as former generations', i.e. strengthening the Palestinian cultural identity while help increasing the awareness for the Palestinian situation among international audiences. The artistic language applied in the works of these artists is entirely international and contemporary, Palestinian artists of the young generation live in countries of a very different character, they are exposed to a wide range of influences from the artists' communities of their host countries and their own personal history with its often strongly hybrid character adds to this variety of influences and make Palestinian contemporary art a particularly dynamic and exciting field.
In some cases a highly humoristic and ironic approach is used in dealing with these heavy issues. This is particularly evident in the works of Emily Jacir, Larissa Sansour and Sharif Waked. While this might be surprising to some people; according to Larissa Sansour, this pop-culture related approach is grounded in the wish to convey political messages through familiar formats that the public normally associates with light entertainment and thus get away from the stereotyped images of suffereing and weeping Palestinian women and children. In her video "Bethlehem Bandolero" (2005), she stages the absurd gun duel between herself and the apartheid wall that separates Palestinian territory into small, isolated enclaves. The imagery is reminiscent of Italo-Westerns from the 1970s starting with the protagonist's march through her native Bethlehem and ending with her final duel with the awe-inspiring wall.
Sharif Waked's "Chic Point" addresses the humiliating practices at Israeli check points but rather than merely documenting these, he offers an ironic solution to the tiresome "necessity" to force Palestinian men to expose parts of their body to ensure they do not carry any weapons. The body of Paletinians, particularly young men, is regarded with fear by the Israeli forces as a potentially lethal weapon and every measure is taken to ensure that it cannot be used against Israeli targets. Thus, Waked presents a fashion line for check points. The clothes are all designed to leave the crucial body parts uncovered by using net or transparent material. Waked's video makes use of the aesthetics of fashion shows, the models are well-trained young men, their presentation is accompanied by strong rythms. The video could seem like the taping of an avant-garde fashion designer's show. But the illusion is broken harshly at the end by photos of ordinary Palestinians, some with exposed chests, others entirely naked, kneeling in front of machine guns. There is nothing sleek and fashionable about the ending of the video, we are back in reality at its most brutal level.
The project "Sexy Semite" (2000-2001) by Emily Jacir is a provocative reflection on territory, occupation and their effects on people's personal lives. Jacir and some friends inserted fifty mock personal ads in a newspaper, seemingly of Palestinian women seeking to marry an Israeli. While invoking the typical language of such ads, he group simultaneusly undermined it by referring to common stereotypes about Palestinians, such as fertility ("Ready to start a big family), Israeli colonialism ("Redhead Palestinian ready to be colonized by your army"), and national symbolic of both sides ("Do you love milk and honey?"; "Still have house keys"). The light tone of the ads stand in a jarring contrast to the reality behind them. Faced with the problem of limited access to land and restricted mobility, it seems the only way out of this is through marriage to an Israeli. As T.J Demos pointed out, Jacir's work succeeds in showing the ridiculous effects of barriers on people's lives while contrasting them with the ease of other forms of exchange, here demonstrated through newspaper ads (T.J. Demos: Desire in Diaspora: Emily Jacir, Art Journal, Vol. 62/4, 2003).
Two basic themes are at the centre of the work of contemporary Palestinian artists: Territory and related topics, such as occupation and restriction on mobility and the question of identity with the related topics of exile and alienation. In dealing with these topics, contemporary Palestinian artists seem to have taken up the traditional role of artists as chroniclers of Palestinian resistance.
As outlined above, the strongly political language of the "Liberation Art" movement was replaced by more personal and subtle refelctions on "Palestinianness" after the outbreak of the First Intifada. This period of experimenting and its wide use of local materials related to the natural environment led the way to a renewed energy in politically motivated art.
As long as the living conditions of the Palestinian people remain so problematic, the political element is likely to stay an important part of artistic and cultural production in the country. Like curator James Harithas said, "under conditions of occupation, everything is political".
