Opening on April 17th 2012, the group exhibition entitled: Portraits of Cain: Representations of the 'Others' in Contemporary Art in Israel
Prof. Haim Maor is the curator of the exhibition in conjunction with art students at Ben-Gurion University of Negev. The exhibition will be on view in two university galleries and will be accompanied by a catalog and a two-day conference. The exhibition will open on April 17, 2012 and run through June 10, 2012.
The exhibition will explore how 30 Israeli artists in past and present, relate to the concept of the “mark of Cain” (stigma) and broader contexts, starting at the biblical story and its versions in the Jewish midrash, Christian and Muslim texts, to the image of Cain as a Pre-Figuration of the Wandering Jew to contemporary representations of the "marked people" for gender, religion, race, nationality, professional association and so on. The concept will be explored with regard to representations both as the aggressor and as the victim as represented in art and in the contemporary media. In addition, proposals will be presented for the design of the mark/symbol/image of the "mark of Cain" sign of surrender- identifying as well as protecting – since there is no literal or verbal reference in the Bible as to the mark’s visual presentation.
List (partial) of the artists: Eyal Adler Kelner, Vered Aharonovitch, Gaston Zvi Itzkovitz, Micha Bar Am, Paul Goldman, Ken Goldman, Michael Druks, Khader Oshah, David Tartakover , Nurit Yarden, Erez Israeli, Vardi Kahana, Sarah Katz, Boaz Lanir, Liav Mizrachi, Motti Mizrachi, Natan Nuchi, Adi Nes, Michael Segen Cohen, Asad Azi, Miki Kratsman, Micha Kirshner, Arnon Rabin, Haya Ran-Gertz.
Faces of Cain: Representations of the 'Others': A two day interdisciplinary conference will take place on April 17th in the W. A. Minkoff Senate Hall at BGU and on April 18th in the Auditorium of the Open Museum in Omer. The conference will deal with different aspects of the subject of the exhibition. The conference will be dedicated to the memory of social psychologist Professor Dan Bar-On. The second part of the conference will relate to the exhibitions "Haim Maor: They are Me" and “Ahmad Kna’an: Sculptures" which will be displayed at the Open Museum in Omer.
