Miki Kratsman
dal 4/3/2011 al 16/4/2011
Segnalato da
4/3/2011
Miki Kratsman
Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal
All About Us. His photographs document the development of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and its consequences on the daily life of the civil population. Through his work as a press photographer over the past 20 years, Kratsman has gained access to locations that are normally unapproachable for the public in Israel and that are generally completely unknown to the international media.
curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen, assisted by Amira Gad
Miki Kratsman, born 1959 in Argentina, immigrated to Israel in 1971 where he has been living in Tel
Aviv since. His photographs are regularly published in the Israeli daily newspaper “Haaretz” in the
rubric “The Twilight Zone”. Since 2006, Kratsman has been directing the photography course at the
renowned Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem.
Miki Kratsman’s photographs document the development of the Israeli-Palestine conflict and its
consequences on the daily life of the civil population, whose everyday life has been marked by
oppression for decades. Through his work as a press photographer over the past 20 years, Kratsman has gained
access to
locations that are normally unapproachable for the public in Israel and that are generally completely
unknown to the international media.
Whereas at first journalistic documentation was at the foreground of his work, Kratsman is today
primarily interested in “shooting images of everyday life” that show people in an emotional interaction
within complex reality, which is shaped by ever-new forms of violence, caused by the politics
of colonies, but also by hope.
“All about us” at the Ursula Blickle Foundation is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Europe.
In addition to Miki Kratsman’s comprehensive archive, the exhibition focuses on new work that
selects the Bedouin population as a central theme. The Bedouin – a minority of the Arabic minority in
Israel – have attracted increasing interest in the last years, both from the media and from state-run
institutions. The process of integration of the Bedouin into Israeli society occurs on two levels – the
formal one, i.e. through governmental policy, and the informal one, i.e. through changing relations
with Israeli society in general and Jewish society in particular.
The process is marked by a number of conflicts within this cultural group: The transition from a
traditional, conservative society of the Bedouin – who until one generation ago lived a nomadic life –
towards an urban way of living and the orientation within power structures, the very opposite of a nomadic
tradition. This creates new forms of poverty and criminality and means at the same time abandonment
of values, customs and their previously self-contained economic system. The sensation of
deprivation often yields objective problems and conflicts that bring with them dramatic socio-political
changes.
As in his earlier series, Kratsman established close relationships with the people he portrays.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
Authors: Nicolaus Schafhausen, Vanessa Joan Müller and Raphael Zagury-Orly.
Image: Miki Kratsman
Press Information
Dr. Hannelore Paflik-Huber, Phone +49 17623622819
presse@ursula-blickle-stiftung.de
Opening Saturday, March 5, 2011, 7 p.m.
Welcome: Ursula Blickle, Talks on the exhibition:Nicolaus Schafhausen and Miki Kratsman
Closing Event April, 17, 2011, 4 p.m.
Lecture and conversation: Dr. Hannelore Paflik-Huber, art historian, Stuttgart
Ursula Blickle Foundation
Mühlweg 18, D-76703 Kraichtal-UÖ
Hours: Wed. 2-5 p.m., Sun. 2-6 p.m. and by appointment
Free admision