Wholly Unholy: Religious iconography in Israeli art and performance

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Notes

¹ Va Yomer. Va Yelech. Va Yishtachu. Va Yare. (And He Said. And He Walked. And They Bowed. And He Saw.) Performed by the Itim Ensemble in affiliation with the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv. Created and directed by Rina Yerushalmi (1995/1998), <http://www.itimtheatre.com>.

²A Bible book in Israeli context refers to the Old Testament and does not include the New Testament.

³There are many reasons for the presence of Christian iconography in Israeli art, among them the attempt to create works with a ‘universal’ appeal that relates to a Western, Judeo-Christian cultural heritage.

⁴These images are reproduced in Perez (2003).

⁵For this formulation in the context of art, see Meyer (1997: 20–1).

⁶‘Homosociality’ refers to same-sex relationships that are not necessarily romantic or sexual, i.e., a relationship between heterosexual males can be homosocial. Eve Sedgwick(1985) claims that the differentiation between the homosocial and the homosexual is instrumental and might express homophobic ideology, while actually there's a continuum (not an identity) between the two.

⁷Sigalit Landau, The Endless Solution, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 23 December 2004 – 30 April 2005. Curator Mordechai Omer. ‘The Endless Solution’ refers to the Nazi term ‘the final solution’ and creates in Hebrew a play on words.

⁸‘Flag Nation Flag’ Exhibition, Center for Contemporary Art, Haifa, 1998.

⁹In addition to the figures discussed here of Hagar, Ruth and Naomi, Nes presents in this series the figures of Noah, Abraham and Isaac, Job, David and Jonathan, Samuel and Saul, Elijah, Joseph, Jacob and Esau, and Cain and Abel.