Gil & Moti: Available For You

Over a period of two months, Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, will be
housing Gil & Moti’s performative and site specific project Available For You.
Gil & Moti originally come from Israel but have lived in Holland since 1998. Taking
as their point of departure their own nationality and the current situation in Israel,
concepts such as humanity, atonement and forgiveness acquire an added significance,
and these are the very themes which recur in the duo’s artistic activities.
In Available For You, the artists with both humour and brotherly love embark on
a project of atonement in which they offer a number of services to residents with
an Arab background at the Nørrebro part of Copenhagen with a view to creating
interhuman relations which may help to counteract the otherwise so ingrained political
hostility.
Through a series of performances in local supermarkets at Nørrebro, Gil & Moti intend
to establish the initial contact to this Arab segment. Under the title Giving, the duo will
serve slices of bread with messages such as “respect”, “accept”, “listen” and “tolerate”,
all of them inscribed in the joint Israeli and Arab dish hummus. Next, the duo will
offer Arabs at Nørrebro their services in performing everyday domestic tasks such as
cooking, babysitting, shopping and garden work - and the services rendered will be
documented and currently exhibited at Nikolaj. Here, the guests may meet the artists
and discuss the course of events, suggest new initiatives or simply observe what has
taken place so far.
Gil & Moti were both born in Israel and have been living and working together since
1994. They now live in Rotterdam in Holland. In their artistic practice they use
themselves as a starting point and come across as a “pair of twins”, in which their
personal and artistic lives become parts of the same whole. In 1999, for instance,
they made their private lives public when they transformed their home into a gallery
called Gil & Moti Homegallery. The duo’s work typically revolves around how public
space influences human interaction. Through their works, Gil & Moti want to engage
themselves in and have their say in today’s discussions about the conflict between
identity and culture as well as on the very conditions for social coexistence.
As a part of Available For You, Nikolaj, Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center,
has entered ino a collaboration with the Verdens KulturCentret (“The Centre for
World Culture”) at Nørrebro which will be an active part of the project. In the last
two weeks of the project, Gil & Moti will strike camp to relocate themselves at the
VerdensKulturCentret in order to become even more visible to the Arab network
at Nørrebro. During the two months of the project, the VerdensKulturCentret will
furthermore provide the setting for various activities initiated by Gil & Moti.
The project is a part of Copenhagen AIR, The City of Copenhagen’s new “Artist in
Residence” programme.

Gil & Moti: Available For You

April 1 - May 31 2008