Stavanger Aftenblad, Norway, Friday 4 November 2011
Art and Life Are One
Trond Bogen
English translation: Maiken Winum
An
extraordinary beautiful exhibition that conveys relational art in a
sophisticated, yet easily understandable and concrete plan.
Relational art. Not only heard the term abstract and difficult, in
practice there are not many artists who have mastered this form of
contemporary art from what we have seen in this district last year.
Sometimes it stays this art on a private plane, between the athletes
and those involved in the art process
Now, finally! Here is an extraordinary beautiful exhibition that
conveys relational art in a sophisticated, yet easily understandable
and concrete plan: the Israeli artist couple Gil & Motis exhibition
<<Totally Devoted to You>> Stavanger Art Museum is full of
rich experiences for visitors, while the peculiar way exposes the
artists' privacy.
Or rather, these artists have no privacy, because they have chosen to
expose themselves as art 24 hours a day. Both as a gay couple who dress
identically, as if they were twins (probably inspired by Gilbert &
George) who seek sexual partners in many countries, and that social and
political actors.
To create the art at the interface between different genes(geners):
they call themselves concept artists but is far from the concept art
that would rather not be specified in the matter and thus suffer from
fatigue (Lawrence Weiner), or which have gradually developed a maniert,
decadent relation to ideas (Joseph Kosuth).
They are also obviously performance artists, video documentation and
installations shows - such as when they did the ceremony's a theatrical
public event in Rotterdam, where they were married by the Mayor and
then spend the honeymoon for ten days in a bed in the middle of things
the house foyer.
On one level, the exhibition also a series of extended self-portraits,
but in contrast to the narcissistic eccentricity of Gilbert &
George, cultivated over many years, dishes Gil & Moti gaze out into
the world and create and exploit more new relationships with people
from different cultures. As Israeli artists meet not only the so-called
enemy, they share their life with him - both in relationships over
time, as when they lived in a kjaerkinghetsforhold with a man from
Lebanon (Laylah the Creature Beyond Dreams) and when they went in as
helpers and servants of Arab immigrants in Damark and Holland -
Building cleaning, scrubbing the toilet, etc. (Available for You).
These are actions with a strong symbolic value Arabs immigrants to
countries where they often have to take low paid servieeyrker, assume
the server role, get yourself some Israeli ministers for a time. There
are also actions that clearly expresses the artist couple's sexual
orientation, as in Dating Gil & Moti, where they use gays dating
sites on the Internet to acquire a network of men.
Gil & Moti crosses different boundaries to adapt attitudes to
political divisions, ethnic and sexual identity and social
relationships. All the time included the new and extensive
relationships with people, and everything can be used in the art. They
encompass wide in technique and expression ranging from video to
watercolors, from writing to the display of trivial objects used in the
encounter with others, as if they were relics, remnants of holy
persons, with a salvation issue. It does show both rich and eventful.
And as we are, fortunately, left with the question: are these artists
really so selvutleverende that we get the impression Aver art and life
really one - el - laughs are also an element of fiction?
The exhibition is NOK a result of Stavanger Art Museum coordination of
exhibitions with several other European museums. Now we enjoy the
benefits of this fruitful cooperation.
