biography

Yael Bartana was born in Kfar Yehezkel, Israel, in 1970. She currently lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin.

Yael Bartana is an observer of the contemporary and a pre-enactor. She employs art as a scalpel inside the mechanisms of power structures and navigates the fine and crackled line between the sociological and the imagination. Over the past twenty years, she has dealt with some of the dark dreams of the collective unconscious and reactivated the collective imagination, dissected group identities and (an-)aesthetic means of persuasion. In her films, installations, photographs, staged performances and public monuments Yael Bartana investigates subjects like national identity, trauma, and displacement, often through ceremonies, memorials, public rituals and collective gatherings.

Her work has been exhibited worldwide, and is represented in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

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Yael Bartana was born in Kfar Yehezkel, Israel, in 1970. She currently lives and works in Amsterdam and Berlin.

Yael Bartana is an observer of the contemporary and a pre-enactor. She employs art as a scalpel inside the mechanisms of power structures and navigates the fine and crackled line between the sociological and the imagination. Over the past twenty years, she has dealt with some of the dark dreams of the collective unconscious and reactivated the collective imagination, dissected group identities and (an-)aesthetic means of persuasion. In her films, installations, photographs, staged performances and public monuments Yael Bartana investigates subjects like national identity, trauma, and displacement, often through ceremonies, memorials, public rituals and collective gatherings.

Her work has been exhibited worldwide, and is represented in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Selected solo shows include: Light to the Nations, The Center for Digital Art, Tel Aviv (2023); Yael Bartana Retrospective, Antenna Documentary Film Festival, Sydney, (2022); Malka Germania, University Art Gallery @ UCI, Irvine, USA (2022); Yael Bartana, Redemption Now, Jewish Museum Berlin, Berlin (2021); Yael Bartana. Cast Off, Fondazione Modena Arte Visive, Modena (2019); And Europe Will Be Stunned, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2018); What if Women Ruled the World, Manchester International Festival, Manchester and Aarhus 2017 European Capital of Culture Aarhus (2017); Trembling Times, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (2017); On Cohabitation, The Banff Centre, Alberta (2016); Wenn Ihr wollt, ist es kein Traum, Secession, Vienna (2012); ...and Europe will be stunned, Moderna Museet, Malmö (2010); Trembling Time, Kings of the Hill, PS1, New York (2008).

She has also taken part in several group exhibitions, among which: Dawn of Humanity, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany (2023); I am resisting, Museumsquartier Osnabrück / Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, Osnabrück, Germany (2023); Dance Me To The End Of Love, Performing PAC, Milan, Italy (2023); Dix and the present, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany (2023); #empowernment Planetarische Feminismen, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany (2022); What is the Proper Way to Display a Flag?, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen, Germany (2022); Witch Hunt, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2021); Histories of Women / Feminist Histories, MASP / Casa de Povo, Sao Paulo (2019); Reality... is more absurd than any film, Marta Herford Museum, Herford (2019); The Street. Where the World is Made, MAXXI, Rome (2018); Freedom of Movement, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2018); Scenes from the Collection, Jewish Museum New York (2018); Place Relations, CEPA Gallery, Buffalo (2017); The Body Extended: Sculpture and Prosthetic, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2016); Summer guests, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisboa (2016); How to (...) things that don’t exist, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2015); La disparition des lucioles, La Collection Lambert, Avignon (2014); Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2013).

In 2002 she took part in the 4th Manifesta; in 2005 in the 9th Istanbul Biennial; in 2012 in the 7th Berlin Biennial; in 2014 in the 19th Biennale of Sydney and in the 31st Sao Paolo Biennial. In 2011 she represented Poland in the 54th Venice Biennale.

She won the Artes Mundi 4 Prize (2010) and the trilogy …And Europe Will Be Stunned was ranked as the 9th most important art work of the 21th century by the Guardian newspaper (2019). 

In 2023 she was awarded of the Rome Prize at German Academy in Rome Villa Massimo.

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images

Patriarchy is History, 2019

Neon

198,4 × 185,3 cm

Photo: t-space studio

Trembling Times, 2017

Neon

177 × 250 cm

Photo: Nora Rupp / Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne

Next Year in New Jerusalem, 2014

Neon

105,3 × 104,4 cm

Bury Our Weapons, Not Our Bodies! (3), 2018-2020

Color photograph

45 × 67,5 cm; 57,5 × 80 cm framed

Bury Our Weapons, Not Our Bodies! (13), 2018-2020

Color photograph

45 × 67,5 cm; 57,5 × 80 cm framed

Bury Our Weapons, Not Our Bodies! (9), 2018-2020

Color photograph

45 × 30 cm; 57,5 × 42,5 × 4 cm framed

Bury Our Weapons, Not Our Bodies! (10), 2018-2020

Color photograph

45 × 30 cm; 57,5 × 42,5 cm framed

R.I.P. Glock, 2019

Pigmented relief casting ceramic powder

4 × 32 × 47 cm; Pedestal and plexiglass case: 60 × 90 × 40 cm each

Photo: c

R.I.P. Winchester, 2019

9 × 59 × 122 cm; Pedestal and plexiglass case: 80h × 140 × 80 cm

Photo: t-space studio

R.I.P. Winchester and R.I.P. Glock, 2019

Pigmented relief casting ceramic powder

Installation view at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, via Stradella 1

Cast Off (1), 2017

Color photograph, fine art print. Canson Platine FibreRag 310 g mounted on Dibond 3mm

75 × 50 cm

Cast Off (3), 2017

Color photograph, fine art print. Canson Platine FibreRag 310 g mounted on Dibond 3mm

75 × 50 cm

Cast Off (5), 2017

Color photograph, fine art print. Canson Platine FibreRag 310 g mounted on Dibond 3mm

75 × 50 cm

Pardes (1), 2015

Black and white photograph

35 × 52,5 cm

Pardes (5), 2015

Black and white photograph

35 × 52,5 cm

Pardes (8), 2015

Black and white photograph

35 × 52,5 cm

The Missing Negatives of the Sonnenfeld Collection (17), 2008

Black and white photograph

40,4 × 50,6 cm

The Missing Negatives of the Sonnenfeld Collection (19), 2008

Black and white photograph

40,4 × 50,6 cm

The Missing Negatives of the Sonnenfeld Collection (20), 2008

Black and white photograph

40,4 × 50,6 cm

The Undertaker, 2019

Single channel 2k video. Color, sound

Duration: 13'

Pardes (Orchard), 2015

video and sound installation

Duration: 71'

Pardes (Orchard), 2015

Video and sound installation

Duration: 71'

True Finn, 2014

One channel video and sound installation

Duration: 50'

The Recorder Player from Sheikh Jarrah, 2010

One channel video and sound installation

Duration: 7'20''

public exhibitions

Kunstmuseum Bonn

Bonn

Dawn of Humanity

19.10.2023 – 18.2.2024

Palazzo Dragonetti Rivera

L'Aquila

Panorama ITALICS

7.9 – 10.9.2023

Photo: Alessio Tamborini and Luca M. Fontana

Center for Digital Art

Holon, Israel

Light to the Nations

23.2 – 10.6.2023

Tufts University Art Galleries

Medford, USA

The Sun Rises in the West and Sets in the East

30.8 – 11.12.2022

Hammer Museum

Los Angeles

Witch Hunt

10.10.2021 – 9.1.2022

Photo: Jeff McClane

The Jewish Museum Berlin

Berlin

Redemption Now

26.4 – 21.11.2021

Courtesy: Jewish Museum Berlin. Photo: Yves Sucksdorff

Museum on the Seam

Jerusalem, Israel

Life / Still Life / Land

12.4 – 13.8.2021

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia, USA

The Undertaker

12.2 – 5.12.2021

Moody Center for the Arts

Houston

States of Mind: Art and American Democracy

19.9 – 19.12.2020

Photo: Nash Baker

FMAV - Fondazione Modena Arti Visive

Modena

Yael Bartana. Cast Off

15.11.2019 – 13.4.2020

Photo: Rolando Paolo Guerzoni

MASP

São Paolo

Feminist Histories: Artists After 2000

23.8 – 17.11.2019

Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia

And Europe Will Be Stunned

21.9.2018 – 1.1.2019

Photo Timothy Tiebout

Stedelijk Museum

Amsterdam

Freedom of Movement

25.11.2018 – 17.3.2019

Photo: Peter Tijhuis

Manchester International Festival

Manchester

What if Women Ruled the World?

5.7 – 8.7.2017

Photo: Birgit Kaulfuss

Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts

Lausanne

Trembling Times

19.5 – 20.8.2017

Photo: Nora Rupp

press

Bartana: faccio arte per capire il mondo

Francesca Interlenghi

Il Giornale dell'Arte

August 4, 2023

A Haunting Film at UC Irvine Is not for the Faint of Heart

Liz Goldner

LA Weekly

March 25, 2022

Faithful Narratives

Eva Scharrer

Spike

Autumn 2021

Yael Bartana on the Politics of Collective Redemption

Boaz Levin

Frieze

July 21, 2021

Yael Bartana on messianic myth, redemption, and the “Jewish question”

Daniel Horn

Artforum

June 30, 2021

Yael Bartana

Galleria Raffaella Cortese

Maria Chiara Valacchi

Artforum

April 14, 2020

Interview with Yael Bartana | Patriarchy is History

Sara Benaglia, Mauro Zanchi

ATP Diary

March 13, 2020

Yael Bartana Proclaims that Patriarchy is History at Galleria Raffaella Cortese

Balasz Takac

Widewalls

February 22, 2020

The best art of the 21st century

Adrian Searle, Jonathan Jones, Sean O’Hagan and Hettie Judah

The Guardian

September 17, 2019

"The Street"

Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, Rome

Ida Panicelli

Artforum

March 2019

Yael Bartana

Philadelphia Museum Of Art

Hannah Stamler

Artforum

January 2019

Yael Bartana: And Europe Will Be Stunned; Elizabeth Price: Here – review

Laura Cumming

The Guardian

May 13, 2012

Yael Bartana

Luigi Fassi

Klat Magazine

Autumn 2010

publications

Yael Bartana

Nicole Schweizer

JRP Editions

Zurich

2017

If you will it, it is not a dream / Wenn ihr wollt, ist es kein Traum

Revolver

Berlin

2013

And Europe Will Be Stunned – The Polish Trilogy

James Lingwood, Eleanor Nairne

Artangel

London

2012

A Cookbook for Political Imagination

Sebastian Cichocki, Galit Eilat

Sternberg Press

Berlin

2011

And Europe Will Be Stunned

Joa Ljungberg, Andreas Nilsson, Magnus Jensner, Joa Ljungberg, Joshua Simon

Revolver Publishing

Berlin

2010

Yael Bartana

Edited by Yilmaz Dziewior

Hatje Cantz

Berlin

2007

Dateline Israel – New Photography and Video Art

Susan Tumarkin Goodman, Andy Grundberg, Nissan N. Perez

Yale University Press

New Haven

2007

video


Bartana - Light to the Nations

TV review about Yael Bartana's "Light to the Nations" exhibition at CDA Holon, 2023.


Yael Bartana – Patriarchy is History

Online preview of the artist's third solo exhibition at the gallery, on view starting Friday, February 27, 2020


Yael Bartana: Returning 3.3 Million Jews

Yael Bartana was interviewed by Michael Juul Holm at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in 2011. Camera & editing: Sonja Strange. Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2013.

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