Palestinian Art - Palestinian Artists in Israel

Palestinian Artists in Israel

There is a significant difference between the Palestinian artists beyond the Green Line and the ones being called “the Palestinian artists of 48”. The artist from 48 are usually divided between the older painters and sculptors who acted during the 1970s and the 1980s, for instance Halil Ryan, Ibrahim Nubani and Abed Abdi, the latter one is considered to be a pioneer in the Arab Israeli art movement, and between the younger generation which became active after the Oslo agreements and now amounts to more than 200 art school graduates creating mainly installations, photography, video art and performances. The last decade shows a noticeable increase in the number of Palestinian students in Israeli art academies such as in the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Hisham Zreiq, Ahlam Shibli, Sami Bukhari, Reida Adon, Ashraf Fawakhry, Ahlam Jomah, Jumana Emil Abboud, and Anisa Ashkar are Palestinian artists — most of whom are graduates from art schools in Israel and form part of an entire generation of Palestinians, citizens of Israel born after 1967.

The issue of identity for Palestinian citizens of Israel is a key subject of importance to the artwork produced. This identity is described by Azmi Bishara as followed:

From both the historical and theoretical perspectives, the Arabs in Israel are part of the Palestinian Arab people. Their definition as 'Israeli Arabs' was formed concurrent with the emergence of the issue of the Palestinian refugees, and the establishment of the State of Israel on the ruins of the Palestinian people. Thus, the point of departure from which the history of the Palestinians in Israel is written is the very point in which the history of the Palestinians outside Israel was created. One cannot point at a nationality or national group called 'Israeli Arabs' or 'the Arabs of Israel'.

Ben Zvi suggests that this definition pinpoints the dialectic underpinning the identity of this group of artists who are identified "on the one hand, as part of a broad Palestinian cultural system, and on the other — in a differentiated manner — as the Palestinian minority in Israel."

The issue of identity becomes particularly clear in an artwork of the Palestinian artist Raafat Hattab from Jaffa. The video performance “untitled” was part of the exhibition “Men in the Sun” in the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in 2009. In the work, Raafat Hattab is seen as he poures water into a bucket in order to lengthily water an olive tree which is a sign for the lost paradise before 1948. The scene is primed by the song Hob (Love) by the Lebanese Ahmad Kaabour which expresses the need for Palestinian solidarity. The chorus repeats the phrase "I left a place” and it seems as if the video is dealing with memory. But as the camera zooms out, the spectator realizes that Hattab and the olive tree both actually stand in the middle of the Rabin Square, a main place in Tel Aviv, and the water used for watering the tree comes from the nearby fountain. "In my installations I appear in different identities that combined are my identity — a Palestinian minority in Israel and a queer minority in the Palestinian culture", explains Rafaat Hattab in an interview with the Tel Avivian City Mouse Magazine.

Israeli art historian Gideon Ofrat argues that understanding Palestinian art requires familiarity with the complexities of Palestinian culture, language and history, and therefore attempts by Israeli art critics to analyze Palestinian art are doomed to failure.