One specific type of non-verbal communication is sign language, in which bodily gestures are codified and transformed into a regular language with a clear set of rules. In Tali Keren’s work, this language both engages and distances the viewer. The difficult text is channeled through the body of the translator, which is transformed into an objective tool.
Some of the works included in the exhibition are concerned with miniscule gestures that are hardly noticeable, yet which offer an important key for understanding human nature. The charged meaning of these “micro-gestures” is most clearly revealed in portraits of people in “uniform” – ranging from work uniforms to the traditional outfits worn by Hassidic Jews. As Nadav Kander and Lea Golda Holterman’s works reveal, the smallest bodily gestures registered by the artist’s camera may be enough to undermine our stereotypical impression of an entire social sector, while pointing to the uniqueness of the individual.
Other works, by contrast, center on the context surrounding the gestures. Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s video works are concerned with the new meaning acquired by typically Western body gestures when they are removed from their original cultural context. Hadas Reshef, meanwhile, intervenes in the reality she documents by decontextualizing various body gestures or removing them from their natural continuum. This process may lead to surprising results: a party suddenly comes to resemble a funeral, while a turbulent student demonstration calls to mind a folk-dancing festival.
Several works center on entirely intuitive body gestures, while others are concerned with the most calculated movements – ones that are a result of a purely rational, intellectual process. In Pierre Coulibeuf’s work, for instance, the dancers’ bodies seem to be “flowing” in a state of perfect and instinctive harmony with nature, so that the viewer is capable of understanding a complex narrative despite the absence of words. All signs of civilization disappear, while the “creatures” performing the movements seem to be transformed into animals or natural forces that are part of the surrounding environment. In contrast to the movement of the dancers captured by Coulibeuf, the animal movements in Galia Uri’s work are based on the theory and practice of Chi Kung. In this case, every movement represents the “spirit” of a certain animal without actually imitating its behavior, in order to enhance the mover’s spiritual awareness and strengthen the human body. Thomas Hirschhorn similarly links body and mind: activating a display-window mannequin so that it appears to dance, he creates a connection between the “high” world of philosophy and the “low,” concrete world of commerce. In this context, the revelation of the stark contrast between the spiritual and physical realms constitutes a poignant critique of society.
Body gestures may have clearly legible social and cultural meanings, as well as intimate and private ones. David LaChapelle examines the act of dancing as a cathartic expression of protest and strong emotions – in this case, the anger felt by socioeconomically disadvantaged members of American society. By contrast, William Cobbing and Shachaf Yaron examine more intimate aspects of bodily gestures created in the context of private interactions. In his work Excavation, Cobbing is concerned with body gestures as a symbolic means of searching for the essence of the self. In The Kiss, meanwhile, he touches upon the reciprocal influences that members of a couple exert on each other. Yaron examines a different kind of intimate bond – the one formed between a mother and her baby in the course of pregnancy – and the reciprocal relations between two living beings that are still one.
Less Reading...
