Never Looked Better

An ideological last-days-of-pompeii atmosphere has prompted even official institutions such as Beth Hatefutsoth Museum to comission an exhibition that examines the contemporary instability, even dissolution, of Israel’s formative myths. The concept behind its exhibition Never Looked Better was an invitation to participating artists to re-read the Sonnenfeld archive of classic Zionist photographs as if visiting from Mars. Approaching this epochal collection, as it were, tabula rasa, was a chance to examine the symbolic and emotional legacy of the Zionist aesthetic. Beth Hatefutsoth’s readiness for an essentially ‘post’ discourse is challenging both subscribers and critics of the Zionist ethos, calling for a profound discussion across the board.

It is clear to everyone that the title, Never Looked Better, is ironic. It postulates that the discursive glue unifying the curators, artists and visitors is the shared acknowledgement that such a glue no longer exists.  While scornful of the period in which we really thought we looked our best, the exhibition looks back with a tangible, conflicted nostalgia. The title indeed seems to say that we never looked better than we did in the Sonnenfelds’ photographs. Why did we look so good? Because we believed in the rightness of our cause. Because we had a narrative. We looked good because we were good.

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