Yael
Bartana (born Israel, 1970) is an observer of the contemporary
and a pre-enactor. She employs art as a scalpel inside the mechanisms
of power structures and navigates the fine and crackled line between the
sociological and the imagination. Over the past twenty years, she
has dealt with some of the dark dreams of the collective unconscious and
reactivated the collective imagination, dissected group identities
and (an-)aesthetic means of persuasion. In her films,
installations, photographs, staged performances and public
monuments Yael Bartana investigates subjects like national identity,
trauma, and displacement, often through ceremonies, memorials,
public rituals and collective gatherings.
Her work has been exhibited worldwide, and is represented in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. She currently lives and works in Berlin and Amsterdam.
Selection of Solo Exhibitions: Jewish Museum Berlin (2021), Fondazione Modena Arti Visive (2019/2020); Philadelphia Museum of Art (2018); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015); Secession, Vienna (2012); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2012); Moderna Museet, Malmö (2010); MoMA PS1, NY (2008). Selection of Group Exhibitions: São Paulo Biennial (2014, 2010, 2006); Berlin Biennial (2012); documenta 12 (2007); Istanbul Biennial (2005), Manifesta 4 (2002). She won the Artes Mundi 4 Prize (2010) and the trilogy And Europe Will Be Stunned was ranked as the 9th most important art work of the 21th century by the Guardian newspaper (2019).