ART-PRESENTATION: Emily Jacir-Europa
Emily Jacir is Palestinian and grew up in Saudi Arabia, France, Italy and the U.S.A., now lives in New York and Ramallah. Biographic data of this kind is generally not particularly significant to artists in our globalized art world. With Emily Jacir, however, it forms a vital point of departure for her art. Emily Jacir, employs conventional devices of Conceptualism and Performance art to call attention to the plight of the Palestinian people.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: IMMA Archive
In “Europa” Emily Jacir’s first survey exhibition in Ireland at Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the artist presents sculpture, film, drawings, large-scale installations and photography that focus on her work in Europe, in particular Italy and the Mediterranean. In the exhibition Jacir presents seminal artworks alongside newly commissioned projects which reflect the strong links between Palestine and Ireland, and the shared history of British Colonial Rule. Her site-specific project “Notes for a Cannon” (2016), takes as its point of departure the Clock Tower that once stood at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem. It was destroyed by the British in 1922, under the command of Ronald Storrs, the British Military Governor of the occupied city. The removal of this tower served to match the British imaginary of what the Holy City and the land of the bible should look like. Works in the exhibition include: “ex libris” (2010-12), a documentation of the 30,000 books looted from Palestinian homes, libraries, and institutions by Israeli authorities when the Palestinians were displaced en mass for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. 6,000 of these books are kept and catalogued under the designation “A.P.” (Abandoned Property) at the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. Jacir photographed the books using her cell phone over a span of two years. The images of pages of the looted books, some with signatures, some with coffee ring stains, don’t say anything. They remain silent. Two drawings from her series “from Paris to Riyadh (drawings for my mother)” (1998-01), that document the illegal sections of issues of Vogue Magazine. These works are based on Jacir’s memories of travelling in and out of Saudi Arabia. On the airplane flying into Saudi Arabia, the artist’s mother would black out, using a marker, all the exposed parts of female bodies from the latest ‘Vogue’ magazine in order to bring them into the country. When living in Paris, Jacir collected old magazines from the years they lived in Saudi Arabia and retraced her mother’s action. Extracting the “illegal” sections from each magazine, the work speaks about traversing the space in between two extreme forms of repressing woman; a space in which the image of women is commodified and a space in which the image of women is banned.
Info: Museum of Modern Art Ireland (IMMA), Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Military Rd, Kilmainham, Dublin, Duration: 26/11/1-26/2/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:30-17:30, Sat 10:00-17:30, Sun 12:00-17:30, www.imma.ie
