KUNSTHALLE seitenlichtsaal
Nira Pereg
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Nira Pereg
Kept Alive, 2009-2010
3-channel-videoinstallation
Videostill
Photo: Nira Pereg
The exhibition Culture of Remembrance. On the Work of Nira Pereg shows works by the Israeli artist, who focuses on the normatively deviant everyday occurrences that usually receive little attention, yet which shape a cultural, tradition-based self-understanding.
Among the works on view is the film Sabbath 2008 (2008), which unpretentiously depicts the publicly visible preparations of the Jewish population for the Sabbath: evening scenes in a southern city in which Orthodox Jews begin setting up roadblocks. The art of Nira Pereg is a sharp proclamation of the customary everyday as an unknown, special thing.
Also on view is the 3-channel video installation Kept Alive (2009–10), shown in Germany for the first time, a meditation on aspects of the physical and social implications of death and the form of burials in Israeli society. Arranged asymmetrically and in varying sizes across three projection levels, Pereg documents daily activities at the Jerusalem cemetery Har HaMenuchot, founded in 1951. One projection shows a permanent loop of a man digging a grave; the other two projections mix wide shots of the hillside cemetery with scenes of mausoleum construction, weed-cutting, stone-cleaning and the carving of grave inscriptions, including markings for plots reserved for future burials bearing the Hebrew inscription “Kept Alive”.
Please find here the catalogue of the exhibition.
