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Ben-Ner GuyGuy Ben-Ner is an artist of Israeli origin. Studied at the Hamidrasha Art College in Ramat ha-Sharon in Israel (1994-1997) and at Columbia University in New York (2001-2003). In 2006 he received the prestigious DAAD scholarship in Berlin. He splits his time between Berlin and Tel Aviv. Ben-Ner works mainly in film media. In his video works since the mid-1990s, he has concentrated principally on issues of performance and the internal relationships within his own family. His international career has been significantly influenced by his representation of Israel in the Venice Biennale (2005). The installation on display at the national pavilion by the artist, called Zestaw drzewodom, is a work of considerable critical potential, a type of approach to issues ranging from family politics to commentary on the history of Jewish settlements and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza strip. Ben-Ner, both actor in and director of the film, which is based on the character of Robinson Crusoe trying to create something from nothing, reveals at the same time that the process of construction always involves some necessary destruction. It doesn’t matter whether it that process is Crusoe’s situation or that of the state of Israel, or of the tree that needs to be felled to build a home or furniture. In his works, Ben-Ner often makes use of the language of children’s stories and alludes to the tradition of silent film or slapstick comedies. Moby Dick (2000) is a film in which the main role, other than that of the artist, is played by his daughter Elia. Together in their family kitchen they re-enact scenes from Hermann Melville’s seagoing saga, in which violence is mixed with the grotesque, love with cruelty, humour with gravity. In this work, Ben-Ner takes up the topic of the home as a space in which criticism of the dominant paradigm can take place, in the confines of which one battles to establish boundaries of intimacy. By casting his family in socio-cultural roles, he takes on the role of artist and father, the role of caregiver and free spirit, and also confronts the stereotypes thrust upon people by gender roles. Seeking to achieve the critical potential of play, Ben-Ner overturns the rules of “normal” life. He draws attention to the need to revise that “normalcy”. It can be rejected or returned to, but above all it should not be treated uncritically or thoughtlessly. His films are characterised by technical “boyish roughness”, and often look more like a description of the performance than the final takes. The artist reveals the secrets of his workmanship – the imperfections of editing, direction from off camera, the cheapness of the sets and props, and the non-professional “actors”. His work is his life, and his life is the subject of his video work. He is inspired by the figures of directors who simultaneously performed in the main roles and operated their own cameras, like Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, and especially Buster Keaton. As Sergio Edelstein noted, the curator of the Israeli pavilion at the Vienna Biennale in 2005, “For Ben-Ner, Keaton’s stories about his childhood and family life were especially important, as they reflected the complete erasure of the boundary between private and professional life, between the home and the stage.” In his films there is no pre-production or post-production. It is a living piece of life and art. Over the past few years Guy Ben-Ner has shown his films at the Performa 09 Festival in New York, at the Between the Images festival in Stockholm’s IASPIS (2008) and at the Liverpool Biennale and Shanghai Biennale. He took part in the international History Will Repeat Itself project shown at Berlin’s Kunst-Werke and the Contemporary Art Centre of the Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw (2008) and at Hartware MedienKunstVerein in Dortmund (2007) and during the Skulptur Projekte in Münster (2007). His individual exhibitions have taken place in MassMOCA in North Adams USA (2009), Warsaw’s Zachęta (2008), the DAAD Gallery in Berlin (2007), the Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv (2006) and at the 51st Vienna Art Biennale (2005). |
Meeting with the artistAt the meeting with the artist, dedicated to a short presentation of his work, fragments of selected films were shown, including those that were screened at the festival (Untitled (Drop the Monkey) (2009)), and earlier works, including Moby Dick (2000), and I’d give it to you if I could but I borrowed it (2007). Drop The MonkeyHis film Drop the Monkey, alternatively entitled Untitled was especially prepared for the prestigious New York Festival Performa 09, the founder of which was RoseLee Goldberg.   It eight minutes long, a recording of a telephone conversation with himself which he conducted over a year between Berlin and Tel Aviv. The basic structural concept of the film is its editing: the artist films his scenes according to the screenplay, while travelling between two cities. He could have simplified the process of creating the work greatly by filming all of the Berlin scenes at once, and the scenes in Tel Aviv. But Ben-Ner did not conduct any post-production, he did not interfere with the filmed material in any way, and made no changes in the order of the takes. After filming a scene, he turned off the camera, left the city and turned it on again only in order to film the following take. As a result, the filming of the movie lasted 12 months. The storyboard of this work represents a year in the life of the artist. The work, in its construction, alludes to the beginning of video art, the late 1960s and early 1970s In the age of rapid development of technology of new media, the use of such a severe method deepens reflection on the history of independent film, the syntax of film storytelling, the conventions of narrative, the illusion of continuity of motion and time. At the same time, in this work recurring themes form Ben-Ner’s Work appear in this film: the concept of the unity of life and work, the negotiation of boundaries between the private and the public, the redefinition of socio-cultural roles, commenting on the mechanisms which rule the art world, and the question of German-Jewish relations.  Project curators:: Marek Goździewski, Małgorzata Gołębiewska |
11/06/2010
15:00 Meeting with the artist
11 - 25/06/2010
Drop The Monkey
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