Institutions, Venice
Group Exhibition
From Palestine With Art
European Cultural CentreKarim Abu Shakra, Salman Abu Sitta, Ghassan Abu Laban, Ibrahim Alazza, Mohammed Alhaj, Nabil Anani, Hanan Awad, Jacqueline Bejani, Sana Farah Bishara, Susan Bushnaq, Lux Eterna, Nadia Irshaid Gilbert, Samia Halaby, Rula Halawani, Samar Hussaini, Mohamed Khalil, Rania Matar, Nameer Qassim, Taqi Sabateen The first Palestinian museum in the Western Hemisphere, Palestine Museum US has announced its selection as an official Collateral Event of Biennale Arte 2022, the world's largest and most prestigious art event. Collateral Events are part of the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Cecilia Alemani. "We are proud to be selected to participate in La Biennale Arte 2022,” said Faisal Saleh, founder and executive director of the four-year old Palestine Museum US. "This gives us a great opportunity to fulfill our mission of celebrating and showcasing Palestinian artistic excellence and telling the Palestinian story to a global audience through the arts.” The Museum's exhibition, titled "From Palestine With Art,” features nineteen Palestinian artists residing in Palestine and countries around the world. "From Palestine With Art proudly shows international art world works by Palestinian artists practicing today,” explains Nancy Nesvet, head curator of Palestine Museum US and exhibition curator "looking to the present and future, showing the enduring beauty of Palestine and earning their deserved place in the global arts arena”. The nineteen participating artists represent wide diversity in geography, demographics, and artistic language. The exhibition features painting, including nine portraits of Palestinians prominent in arts and literature; installation, sculpture, photography, and a floor length historic map of Palestine. A live olive tree hung with keys from Palestinian refugees’ homes that signify the right of return. An audio program presents recorded Palestinian oral histories and a continuous stream of Palestinian music. From the Curator, Nancy Nesvet: "As an olive tree, a worldwide symbol of peace, grows from soil symbolic of Palestinian land, its branches bearing keys to houses of those forced to leave, who hope to return, From Palestine With Art welcomes visitors under a draped thob, calligraphed and painted with Palestinian patterns and motifs. The collateral exhibition of La Biennale Arte 2022, sponsored by the Palestine Museum US, shows contemporary art illustrating the age-old, continuous natural beauty of Palestine and Palestinians. As painted long faces of beautiful Palestinian women express longing, remembrance, and unwavering attachment to their native land, tatreez embroidered thobs recall and identify Palestinian villages lost long ago and towns and cities still standing. Ouds play songs of resistance and remembrance. Keys symbolize the right of return. Painted cyclamen sprout from Palestinian earth, reaching for sun, basking in light, as sculptures, smooth and curved juxtapose sharply angled reliefs. Painted hills surrounding Jerusalem and rivers marking borders join paintings of lush, green, unending landscape, allowing us visual access to climb and follow dreams of Utopia. Photographs of old women, one selling figs from trees lovingly tended, standing steadfast against a wall of her house, and another young Palestinian dressed in traditional thob, show beauty and pride that cannot be erased. Even as selective memory of diasporic Palestinian artists, unable and too sad to adequately depict the devastation of their homeland is responsible for the lack of depictions of violence past and present, the colors and illustrations of hope in the paintings create an optimistic vision of what the future may hold, and what the past and present could not destroy. Portraits of Palestinians prominent in art and literature juxtapose an equally important saltworker who toils without equal recompense, knowing her task is necessary for Palestinian survival. Traditional oud music playing in the background, stories of time passed since 1948, encased in kefiyah cloth, symbolic of resistance, and an 1877 map of Palestine, with villages’ Arabic names written on it illustrates the continuous connection to ancestral land that cannot be ignored. Waves, fields, and crooked paths, interpreted in artistic language compose contemporary interpretations of history and memory, and of joy and hope for the future of a beautiful land. Visual art, music and stories in From Palestine With Art reflect the heritage of a proud people, and the hearts and souls of Palestinian artists. It has been a joy to work with the nineteen Palestinian artists represented at Palazzo Mora, and to see their visions of their world exhibited at this collateral exhibition of La Biennale Arte. Their commitment to showing the beauty and brightness that is Palestine enlightens us all. Here, for all the world to see in this most important of all art venues, the beauty of Palestine, its people, culture, past, present, and future expressed by Palestinian artists distinctive art, music and words takes its well-deserved place on the world stage." From the Executive Director, Faisal Saleh: "From Palestine With Art, a Collateral Event of La Biennale Arte 2022, sponsored by the Palestine Museum US, visualizes Palestinians’ longing for a safe homeland and defiance of decades of injustice. Artists living on the land of Palestine in concert with those living in exile build with optimism the vibrant Palestinian national culture. Acknowledging the creative act as a form of resistance, artists refuse to accept man-made architecture and geography built to divide and constrict movement. Rather, they rise above it to show the natural beauty of Palestine and strength of its people. Palestinian artists of all ages show hopes and dreams of freedom as they debunk myths of the old dying and the young forgetting. Incorporating symbols distinct to Palestinian life, artists have created unifying artistic language to show living reality of Palestine. Specific embroidery patterns identify villages; oud plays Palestinian music heard in wedding festivities; house keys on a live olive tree affirm Palestinians’ right of return. Images of cyclamen, by Karim Abu Shakra, symbolize steadfastness in the face of oppression. Painted faces of beautiful Palestinian women express attachment to family and land. Taqi Sabateen’s depiction of hills surrounding Jerusalem joins Nabil Anani’s panorama of majestic Palestinian landscapes of overlapping hills terraced with olive fields and dotted by pencil-thin Italian cypress, as a photograph of Rula Halawani sounds the alarm over the imminent destruction of that utopia. Rania Matar photographs an exuberant young Palestinian venturing outside of her Lebanon refugee camp experiencing the sea for the first time, while another photograph by Hanan Awad tells the story of a Palestinian woman, clad in an embroidered thobe, offering her meager harvest of figs for sale at the Ramallah vegetable market. Samia Halaby’s abstract painting, bold and bright, expresses a radical optimism that is equally strong in the blue of sky and sea. Nameer Qassim’s painting titled “Enough” demands a halt to violence against women. Jacqueline Bejani portrays Palestinians prominent in art and literature. Mohammed Khalil’s “Salt Worker” laments back- breaking work often relegated to women laborers. Two historic Palestinian thobes, fully accessorized, from Hanan and Farah Munayyer’s prized collection, each with motifs identifying village of origin, connect with contemporized embroidery patterns and Arabic calligraphy in Samar Hussaini’s printed fabric. Stories of life since 1948, written and encased in kefiyah-cloth bundles bear testimony in Ibrahim Alazza’s installation. Salman Abu Sitta’s 1877 map shows the pristine Palestine that was, before colonial settlers transformed it into today’s walled enclaves, forbidden areas, and checkpoints. Palestinian artists, be they workers on the land, city dwellers, refugees in camps, or exiles abroad are clearly in love with the beauty of their land – a beauty that elicits a deep emotional response. In Venice, Palestinian artists from around the globe collectively paint hope as they present their art to the world." Palestine Museum US opened its doors on April 22, 2018, as an independent non-profit organization, founded by Palestinian American businessman Faisal Saleh. Four years later, it continues to be the only Palestinian museum in the Americas with over 1,000 square feet of permanent exhibition space. Its 6,500 square foot galleries feature over 200 works of art by more than fifty artists, in addition to embroidery pieces, thobes (traditional Palestinian dresses), murals, books and artifacts. The museum has hosted music concerts, film screenings, plays, lectures, artist talks and openings. Currently the museum holds regular weekly virtual events, and a weekly film festival attended by large audiences in more than 30 countries.