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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Promised Lands @ pARTs Gallery
Wednesday 09 October @ 10:13:31 |
 by Lydia Howell
Maybe the only way to find some truthful perspective on the most controversial and contentious issues, is to turn to artists. Always daring and relevant, pARTs Gallery’s Promised Lands presents four photographers and a group of Israeli/Palestinian youth dealing with political violence in starkly human terms. They shatter sensationalism to feel our way through September 11th and re-claim the humanity behind headlines of suicide bombings, tanks and governments’ Newspeak.
Photo from Jayme Halbritter's Across America
Kevin Brubriski’s “Pilgrimage” to NYC returns dignity to our national mourning, in the purity of black and white portraits of people at Ground Zero. Jayme Halbritter works in risky color going “Across America,” taping people’s response to 9/11. Raw emotion marks the diverse faces and voices that are us. Sylvia Horwitz has a magnificent eye for the revealing detail in daily life “From Jerusalem.” Her sense of light and shadow are as acute and evocative as a Renaissance painter, with the realized union of photojournalism and art of a Cartier-Bresson. Jonathan Sharlin’s “Letters From The Middle East” have a deceptive simplicity: 45 portraits of Israelis and Palestinians, enlarged and printed on 4-feet by 5-feet transparencies, suspended, side by side, in rows. There’s a powerful mix of elegy and earthiness, creating quiet transcendence. He also recorded stories of how the bloody conflict there impacts both Israelis and Palestinians, avoiding political rhetoric in favor of compelling personal narratives.
The most surprising element of this show is the Israeli and Palestinian teenagers photographer Hally Pancer who worked to create “Beyond Borders.”
Attaining artistic excellence, these kids from cities, villages, refugee camps and Jewish settlements show us their torn world. There are unexpected synchronicities between the Jewish, Muslim and Christian experience in some images and the statements accompanying them.
There are also painful contradictions. What these kids see and say is a searing statement of what the failure of just conflict resolution costs everyone involved.
Interviewing Horwitz and Sharlin (current Southside Pride, Powderhorn) and Pancer’s exhibit statement for the show, all recognize their projects could not be done now in current conflagration. That makes this art all the more essential to see. As the U.S. rushes toward another war, Promised Lands is a powerful reality-check reminding us that “collateral damage” has a face.
Hally Pancer and Kevin Brubriski give a free talk about creating their projects, Sat. Oct. 12, 2 p.m. Continues through Oct. 27. Free. Hours: Tue – Sun: Noon – 5 p.m. pARTs Gallery, 711 W. Lake St. Mpls. 612-824-5500.
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