Resurrection I–II, 2020
Photograph series of 2 images
Yael Bartana’s photographic work "Resurrection" brings together
different aesthetic traditions and presents a mutational, multilayered
image that alludes to the worlds of Art History and religious mysticism.
Holding a living hare and standing quietly with her face half covered,
Bartana communicates with the mythical performance piece How to Explain
Pictures to a Dead Hare from 1965, in which Joseph Beuys – his face
covered in honey and golden leaf – walked around a gallery holding a
dead hare and whispered to its ear explanations of the hanged works, as
well as with the performative act by James Lee Byers from 1983 in which
he invited Beuys to lay down with him on a gallery floor while his own
face was covered in black silk. Visually reinterpreting the two
performative interventions while reversing the original settings,
“Resurrection" seeks to challenge the devotional and priestly nature of
the art world as well as the authoritative and traditionally masculine
figure of the artist, evoking a process of empathy, rebirth and
transformation.
The work was first presented at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, as part of the 2021 project
State and Nature.