{"id":3292,"date":"2022-09-11T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/anwar-hadid-and-vin-arfusos-walled-off-premieres-in-italy\/"},"modified":"2022-09-11T11:30:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T11:30:00","slug":"anwar-hadid-and-vin-arfusos-walled-off-premieres-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=3292","title":{"rendered":"Anwar Hadid and Vin Arfuso\u2019s \u2018Walled Off\u2019 premieres in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
From West Bank \u2018apartheid wall\u2019 to gallery walls in Italy: Cake$\u2019s activist art goes on show<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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\nThe work of European street artist and activist Cake$, who uses public art to protest against Israel\u2019s separation barrier in the West Bank and as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people, is currently on display for the first time in Italy.<\/p>\n
\nThe exhibition, titled A Child Is Born In Bethlehem, opened at the Palazzo Oddo Gallery in Albenga on Sep. 4 and continues until Sep. 19. Curated by British-Palestinian art collector, activist and journalist Zayna Al-Saleh and Italian collector Lorenzo Sibilla, it showcases the entirety of the artist\u2019s work to date, including photography of his street art in Palestine, original stencils, linocuts and video art.<\/p>\n
\nCake$, who guards his true identity and describes himself on his Instagram page as an \u201copen-air prison artist,\u201d has created more than 300 works in Bethlehem over the past four years.<\/p>\n
\nThe title of the exhibition references a 16th-century hymn by Samuel Scheidt, which organizers said allows for the juxtaposition of divinity and profanity, past and present, perceived spaces and their actuality to frame the contemporary Palestinian experience, drawing much-needed attention to the persecution of the Christian Palestinian community in the Occupied Territories.<\/p>\n
\nIsrael\u2019s separation barrier, dubbed an \u201capartheid wall\u201d by human rights campaigners, is viewed by many as a symbol of occupation. Cake$ told Arab News that he paints on the wall to advocate for non-reformist reforms that diminish the power of an oppressive system while emphasizing the system’s inability to solve the problems it creates.<\/p>\n\n\n“Little Palestinian Girl Hula Hooping Barbed Wire” (2019). (Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\nHis artworks often depict dark silhouettes of children combined with military symbols. As they play or live with tools of war, such as barbed wire, the children seem unaware they are in imminent danger.<\/p>\n
\nThe use of single-color silhouettes helps to reinforce his very clear and hard hitting message. The images serve to illustrate the fact that humans are not born violent or hateful but cultural conditions can cause them to become that way. Some of his works feature monitory text, such as \u201cCAUTION\/ Toys Of Any Kind Prohibited\u201d (2019) and \u201cI Was An Angel and They Tear Gassed Me\u201d (2020).<\/p>\n
\nCake$ pointed out that in addition to the obvious Palestinian connections, his images also have another, more universal, message.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe girl with the barbed wire, it\u2019s not just about the kids in Palestine that are suffering because of the wall but all kids that suffer because of a border system,\u201d he said. \u201cThe situation in Palestine is really special because it\u2019s been there for 20 years this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRepetition of imagery is an important part of activist street art, said exhibition co-curator Al-Saleh.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere is a very persistent condition involved with activist art, especially street art, due to the material impermanence of it, because art on the wall gets painted over quite regularly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThis means Cake$\u2019s approach to painting in Bethlehem is done with serious persistence, just so that his message remains visible and that his presence has been felt by Palestinians and by tourists and passersby alike.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\nTwo of Cake$’s linocuts created for A Child Is Born In Bethlehem. (Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\nThat said, in creating a series of linocuts for the exhibition, Cake$ chose not to simply replicate images of his street art and instead reworked them to better fit the blank space of the gallery walls. In doing so he is \u201credirecting his public art practice to smaller-scale images, to situate his work at the very boundary between Bethlehem and a safe art institution,\u201d according to the exhibition organizers.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI wanted to recreate these images in a contemporary art way so I used the motifs and the barbed wire to create a more complicated image,\u201d Cake$ said.<\/p>\n
\nSome of his most striking works on display are those that reinterpret the works of Old Masters to reflect the Palestinian narrative. For example, in his piece that homages Salvador Dali\u2019s \u201cThe Persistence of Memory,\u201d retitled \u201cThe Persistence of Apartheid,\u201d three masks dangle loosely with an Israeli watchtower visible in the background.<\/p>\n\n\n“Persistence of Apartheid (Dali)” (2019). (Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\u201cWe all put on masks, in some way or another, and for some people it\u2019s better for them to put on masks than to see the truth of apartheid,\u201d said Cake$.<\/p>\n
\nThe exhibition deals with heavy concepts, which can provoke extreme emotional responses. The contrast between the tragic and absurd has reportedly moved several visitors to tears. However, if one looks closely, there are perhaps glimmers of hope in some of the works on display.<\/p>\n
\nSpeaking about a linocut titled \u201cLittle Palestinian Girl Removing Barbed Wire\u201d (2022), Cake$ said: \u201cI used chalk to paint something in a more expressionist way, which will show the way I see the future beyond barbed wire.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nFrom Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali\u2019s famous character Handala to British street artist Banksy\u2019s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, visual activism has played an integral role in supporting Palestinian resistance on a global scale. Art has an emotional and personal element that means it can educate, enlighten and empower people to bring about change.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to change the politics of borders or make them more humane but instead demolish walls and borders,\u201d Cake$ said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I try to show by painting on the apartheid wall.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat I call border abolition is concerned with expanding this freedom, the freedom to move and to stay. This does not mean advocating for free movement in the world as it is currently configured but rather for transformation of the conditions to which borders are a response.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIn an age of cynicism, Cake$ dares viewers to look at the world as it is and imagine what it could be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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