Tarnishing History through Matter: Gal Weinsteinâs Sun Stand Still at the Israeli Pavilion in Venice

Luna Goldberg

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Chapter 9 Tarnishing History through Matter: Gal Weinsteinâs Sun Stand Still at the Israeli Pavilion in Venice

äºImagined Israel(s): Representations of the Jewish State in the Arts

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Luna Goldberg

Luna Goldberg
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Page Range:: 161â175

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004530720_011

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Abstract

In 1946, two years prior to the founding of Israel, an initial query about the construction of an Israeli Pavilion was submitted to the mayor of Venice. Five years later, Zeev Rechter was appointed as the architect for the Biennale project. Built in a style characterizing pre-state construction in Israel and completed in 1952, the Pavilion and its architecture played an important symbolic role in the construction of national identity at a time when the ânewly founded Israeli state faced the challenge of uniting its heterogeneous population into a national community.â The Pavilion was to represent Israel on an international platform, and Rechterâs modernist design reflected the stateâs longing to promote the country as part of the West. Over the years, several artists representing Israel at the Venice Biennale have transformed the Pavilion through architectural interventions. Most recently, Gal Weinstein visibly âagedâ the Pavilion by growing layers of mold on the walls and floors of the space in his 2017 exhibition Sun Stand Still. This chapter takes the exhibition as a case study, examining how Weinstein uses materiality and installations disrupting the modernist architecture and functionalist aesthetic of the Pavilion as a means of critiquing how the nation forged its image on a global stage while simultaneously reflecting on the current state of the country. The centerpiece of the exhibitionâan installation of molding growths spread throughout the building that actively age and decay the interior of the structureâserves as an allegory for the nation, Weinsteinâs manipulation of the interior of the Pavilion functioning as a metaphorical critique of the state.

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Imagined Israel(s): Representations of the Jewish State in the Arts

ä¸ç¼ï¼ Jewish Identities in a Changing World, å·ï¼ 35

ISBN:: 9789004530720

åºçç¤¾:: Brill

å°å·åºçæ¥æ:: 22 Feb 2023

Subjects

Front Matter

Part 1 Building from the Ground up: Landscape, Language, and Culture

Part 2 Consuming Images: Israel in America

Part 3 Within, without: Becoming Glocal

Part 4 Realizing Visions: Israel Reimagined

Back Matter

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African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

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Chapter 9 Tarnishing History through Matter: Gal Weinsteinâs Sun Stand Still at the Israeli Pavilion in Venice

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Chapter 9 Tarnishing History through Matter: Gal Weinsteinâs Sun Stand Still at the Israeli Pavilion in Venice

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