SETTLEMENT | Six Israelis & One Palestinian
Press
Dorothea Schoene | Afterimage | The Journal of Media Arts & Culture
Stages of Transition | Visualizing Exile in the Work of Steve Sabella
In a 2009 commission for the opening of the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, the artist surprised viewers with an exceptional piece. The exhibition featured works of twenty- three contemporary artists with roots in the Middle East, who each proposed a different narrative of identity and history… Sabella’s contribution was again one of a self-investigative portrayal. He installed six large photographs of Israeli citizens on one wall, and a single photograph of himself centered on the opposite wall. The subjects are unarmed, half naked—yet in self-confident poses.
While again putting himself in the midst of the work’s narrative, this time he doesn’t operate with symbolic or abstract forms. Showing himself as outnumbered by Israelis directly critiques the political situation in Palestine, and showing all figures undressed down to their boxer shorts simultaneously points to the vulnerability of both sides. The installation forced visitors to walk between the two opposing walls, placing the viewer in the midst of the piece, as if taking part in an actual event. What links this work back to Sabella’s other series is again the importance of the title: “Settlement—Six Israelis & One Palestinian”.
Canvas Magazine | Dubai
Exodus and Back | Myrna Ayad
In the same year, Sabella was commissioned to create a work for one of Doha’s mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art’s opening shows – the fantastic Told/Untold/Retold. Settlement: Six Israelis and One Palestinian, (now acquired by Mathaf) sought to address the basics: by getting six Israelis and himself to strip down to their underwear with Sabella on one wall and the others facing him, his provocative installation addresses the need to go back to the roots of the Palestinian – Israeli conflict. There are a number of facets to this work – the ratio of six israelis to one Palestinian reflects the demographics of israel and, as Sabella explains, has many connotations.
It signals, for example,“very charged numbers in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and how the Israelis are always threatened by the ‘one’ Palestinian who might set things off.” There is the idea of a collective that shapes the region, in which nations are treated collectively rather than taking into account the individuality of people. The installation thereby creates a visual unresolved tension, especially as there is no indication of who is winning – the one or the many. “The spectator who stands in the middle of the installation cannot see both sides simultaneously and must make a critical choice,” explains Sabella.
Steve Sabella – Photography 1997-2014 | Hatje Cantz & Akademie der Künste
Hubertus von Amelunxen
The semi-nakedness of the men and their prescribed position in front of a concrete wall in the middle of the image, as if for execution, reflect the helplessness on both sides. Naked except for their boxer shorts, they expose themselves to the camera’s shutter, their gaze directed at the lens, their arms hanging by their sides—no previous verdict, no previous execution. Yet the conflict is configured in the spatial confrontation: six Israelis hang close together on one side of the museum, one Palestinian, Steve Sabella himself, on the opposite side…
The six Israelis and one Palestinian could be standing at that almost eight-meter-high wall; it is behind them, they do not see it. The wall is the preclusion of negotiation and rapprochement, and to this day is a culmination of the settlement policy, the direction of which was formulated long before the foundation of the state of Israel.
Curated by Sam Bardaouil & Till Fellrath MATHAF Inaugural Exhibition | Doha
Told Untold Retold, 23 Stories Through Time & Space, is a collection of stories each vividly expressed in a newly commissioned artwork by 23 artists with roots in the Arab World. It is the first and largest exhibition of contemporary art on this scale within a museum context in the history of the region.
"There is a frank austerity in the work by Steve Sabella, the kind that appeals for time to be suspended. Despite the obviousness of the referent, Steve does not slide into the kind of kitsch one usually encounters in artworks that take it upon themselves to preach politics and clarifies that his installation "could also be considered an act of introspection and interrogation that will create a clash between the two words 'Identity' and 'Identification'."