Dateline: Israel: New Photography and Video Art

What can art tell us about Israel today? Is there an artistic consensus among those living inside and outside the country? How does an artist come to terms with the disturbing realities in Israel---violence, political instability, insecurity, and social discrimination? These questions are at the heart of Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art, a compelling volume that presents photographs and videos of Israel from the diverse outlooks of nearly two dozen international artists. These images reveal the intensity of life there as well as the artistsand#8217; profound personal responses to Israeli life and culture. What is revealed is a complicated view of Israel that has evolved out of the utopian model of an earlier era.

In three insightful essays, the contributors to the volume explore the role of art and artists in contemporary Israel. Susan Tumarkin Goodman examines the aesthetic and political underpinnings of lens-based art made in Israel; Andy Grundberg discusses the roots of Israeli photography and video and places them in an international context; and Nissan N. Perez offers an insiderand#8217;s view of the cultural issues that affect the practice of art in Israel today.

Featured artists include:

Yael Bartana (Israeli, lives in Amsterdam, b. 1970)

Rineke Dijkstra (Dutch, b. 1959)

Barry Frydlender (Israeli, b. 1954)

Ori Gersht (Israeli, lives in London, b. 1967)

Noel Jabbour (Palestinian, lives in Nazareth and Berlin, b. Nazareth, 1970)

Miki Kratsman (Israeli, b. Argentina, 1959)

Wolfgang Tillmans (German, lives in London, b. 1968)

Mark Wallinger (British, b. 1959)

Wim Wenders (German, lives in Los Angeles and Berlin, b. 1945)

Sharon Yaand#8217;ari (Israeli, b. 1966)

A fascinating and timely look at Israel by contemporary Israeli and non-Israeli artists from a wide range of perspectives​

What can art tell us about Israel today? Is there an artistic consensus among those living inside and outside the country? How does an artist come to terms with the disturbing realities in Israel---violence, political instability, insecurity, and social discrimination? These questions are at the heart of Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art, a compelling volume that presents photographs and videos of Israel from the diverse outlooks of nearly two dozen international artists. These images reveal the intensity of life there as well as the artists' profound personal responses to Israeli life and culture. What is revealed is a complicated view of Israel that has evolved out of the utopian model of an earlier era. In three insightful essays, the contributors to the volume explore the role of art and artists in contemporary Israel. Susan Tumarkin Goodman examines the aesthetic and political underpinnings of lens-based art made in Israel; Andy Grundberg discusses the roots of Israeli photography and video and places them in an international context; and Nissan N. Perez offers an insider's view of the cultural issues that affect the practice of art in Israel today.

Through the camera lens, contemporary Israeli and non-Israeli artists view Israel today from a broad range of perspectives. Their photographs and videos, all created since 2000, represent the life and culture of a nation where political realities influence every aspect of creative culture and where individual identities evolve in complex ways.

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Featuring many previously unpublished images, this handsomely illustrated book offers a powerful account of the avant-garde photo-based arts from the early Soviet Union.

Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, photography, film, and posters played an essential role in the campaign to disseminate modernity and Communist ideology. From early experimental works by Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitzky to the modernist photojournalism of Arkady Shaikhet and Max Penson, Soviet photographers were not only in the vanguard of style and technological innovation but also radical in their integration of art and politics. Filmmakers such as Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, and Esfir Shub pioneered cinematic techniques for works intended to mobilize viewers.and#160;

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Covering the period from the Revolution to the beginning of World War II, The Power of Pictures considers Soviet avant-garde photography and film in the context of political history and culture. Three essays trace this generation of artists, their experiments with new media, and their pursuit of a new political order. A wealth of stunning photographs, film stills, and film posters, as well as magazine and book designs, demonstrate that their output encompassed a spectacular range of style, content, and perspective, and an extraordinary sense of the power of the photograph to change the world.

Susan Tumarkin Goodman is senior curator emerita and Jens Hoffmann is deputy director, exhibitions and public programs, both at the Jewish Museum. Alexander Lavrentiev is a Moscow-based art historian, grandson of the photographer Alexander Rodchenko, and director of the Rodchenko-Stepanova archive.