Harry
Tash Jayasinghe
Dexter
CibbuanoLice in the hair of Artisans.
April 29th 2008 00:03
Live art, the hosted hosts another?
Up close with head lice
When I was a grommet catching “nits” was akin to the bubonic plague and every effort was taken to avoid anyone who even showed signs of an itchy scalp. “No it’s not dandruff, it’s lice” my mum would say.
Always a fan of the offbeat and more non conventional art from around the globe, last week another interesting case of pushing boundaries, buttons and definitions was released.
Reported on the Reuters India website, In the town of Bat Yam near Tel Aviv a group of seven German Artists are attempting to live in an Israeli Museum for three weeks. Provocative, three weeks is a long time to sit around and these young men are making a statement with lice in their hair.
From in.reuters.com
"Art is no longer just a painting on the wall," Milana Gitzin-Adiram, chief curator of the Museum of Bat Yam near Tel Aviv, told Reuters. "Art is life, life is art."
Causing a stir some see the exhibit as a sly revival of Nazi propaganda as in WWII the Jews were referred to as “parasites”, lice of course being a member of the family. Obviously not protesting personal hygiene either, the members of the performance piece did not intend this interpretation.
"We were aware that, as Germans in Israel, there was a risk we may be misunderstood, that we would open up wounds," said Stefan Reuter, 27, with a scratch of his head. "People ask about it -- we had one woman who came and thanked us for making such a great statement against the fascist rhetoric of German history."
Reuters says, “The artists, who sleep, eat and bathe in the gallery, said the exhibition toyed with ideas about hosts and guests in line with a theme set by the museum and aimed to blur the boundaries between art and reality.”
"The idea is that we live in the museum as their guests, and at the same time we are hosting lice on our heads," said artist Vincent Grunwald, 23, wearing a plastic shower cap to prevent the lice from spreading.”
From the article it seems a more philosophical than historical context that these questionable live art works exist in. A strange and unusual approach for sure, but one that the creators feel a passionate need to express peacefully, isn’t that what arts all about?
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