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.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.

Testament of Youth

Musrara, Jerusalem: the Naggar School of Photography, Media and New Music is situated on the border between the old city and the new, poverty and wealth, the Jewish and the Arab worlds. With Teen Spirit, recent graduates of the school interrogate another difficult border: that between childhood and adulthood. The result is a portrait of contemporary Israeli youth, illuminating stark contrasts between the tribalism of the social group and the isolation of the teenage bedroom, a desperation to conform and a desire to assert an individual identity.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this content.