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14/2/2004

The Philistines are Coming

Yeshiva University Museum, New York

AN EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARGALIT MANNOR

New York, NY - From February 15-May 19, 2004, Yeshiva University Museum at the Center for Jewish History is pleased to present The Philistines are Coming (Photopleshet), an exhibition of photographs by artist Margalit Mannor.

For The Philistines are Coming, Margalit Mannor photographed a series of iron silhouettes created as part of the design for an exhibition on Philistine life at the Corine Maman Ashdod Museum, located in Ashdod, Israel - one of the five seats of government for the ancient Philistine people. The silhouettes are modern imaginings of what an army of iron-girded Philistines might have looked like, marching out of Ashdod in ancient times. In Biblical stories, the Philistines-the people of Delilah as well as Goliath-were castigated as boorish " pagans " and enemies of the Jewish people. Recent archaeology, however, has revealed that the Philistines, in fact, developed a highly creative culture, with art of great stature.

Meditating on these contradictions, Mannor has focused on the shadow and light that embrace the iron warriors. She highlights the ritualized form of the figures and suggests the movement of their bodies as a way of accentuating the unending flux of history. By decomposing men of ancient iron into transient shadows, often zeroing in on the ribbons or laces they wear, Mannor suggests that strife is an agitation that will pass away. A special quality of this series is Mannor ' s attention to the palette of ochres and browns, so congruent with the world of archaeology. While recollecting the coloration of iron, an ore brought to Canaan by the Philistines, thereby launching the land into a new epoch of warfare, the tonality also seems wistful and antique.

Margalit Mannor has been engaged in a form of " re-photography " for more than two decades, often dissolving representations of art into the air around them. While Louise Lawler re-photographed art in its collected contexts, Mannor often focuses on how the interiors of museums re-contextualize or otherwise create atmospheres that alter art. In this body of work, Mannor deconstructs the showier aspects of museum architecture and lighting to recapture, in shadows, the play of light or subtle details that constitute the barely audible, highly personal communication established between a viewer and a work of art. Mannor photographs not objects or spaces, but objects and spaces as they are immersed in the inquisitive stream of individual sensibility. Mannor ' s art insists on the phenomenological individuality of all perception: each person alters what he/she sees, establishing a unique relationship with the experience of art in the immediacy of the moment. In The Philistines Are Coming, Mannor ironically topples the hegemony of these warriors by claiming for everyone-the boorish pagan and the artless consumer-an essential humanism that engenders cultural response even within a context of animosity.

Mannor ' s photographs have been singled out by a number of curators and writers over the course of her career. In 1995, her work was selected for the photography prize at the Katonah Museum of Art by Robert Storr (then-curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York), for " taking a commonplace shape and presenting it in an imposing and intense way you haven ' t seen before. "

Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Margalit Mannor today lives and works both in Israel and in New York. Her work has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions, including recent exhibitions at the Israel Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum, the Haifa Museum, and the Jewish Museum in New York. Mannor has also exhibited her work at th e Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), The Hebrew Union College Museum (New York, NY), the Hudson River Museum (Yonkers, NY), and the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.).

Mannor represented Israel in the " Women of the World " project originating at White Columns, New York, and featured at the International Museum of Women in 2002. Mannor has also participated in special projects at the Venice Biennale (2001, 2003). Her work has been acquired by Tel Aviv Museum, Haifa Museum, the Israel Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Jewish Museum, and the British Museum, among others.

Originally organized by Yael Wiesel, curator of the Ashdod Museum, this exhibition is curated at Yeshiva University Museum by Reba Wulkan, Contemporary Exhibitions Curator.

General Information
Yeshiva University Museum is located at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues), New York City. Gallery exhibition hours are: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Admission for museum galleries is $6.00 for adults; $4.00 for seniors and students. Museum members and children 5 and under are admitted free.

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