Medinat Weimar received hundreds of responses and Media outlets worldwide wrote about the project. Press here for a selected list of internet links of many of the articles, Blog posts and discussion that can be found on the internet.

See Pictures from the Rally & conference took place in Weimar on the 22nd of June and Watch Psoy Korolenko and Danik Redlick of the The Unternationale who send their greeting for the establishing events.

I’m will be giving a talk, a workshop and participating at a symposium and artist summer camp in Pärnu, Estonia. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by.

Symptoms of nationalism and critique of nationalism in the practice of
contemporary art

Date: July 11, 2008
Venue: Pärnu Artists’ House, Nikolai 27, Pärnu, Estonia
Info: www.publicpreparation.org

An international seminar in the series of “Public Preparation” events concentrating on the relations of contemporary art and nationalism in different places of the world.

The summer seminar furthers the current agenda of the “Public Preparation” project, continuing the thinking camp “Exercises on Adhocray” that took place in July 2007 and dealt with self-organisation and grassroots democracy in the field of contemporary art; it also follows discussions and debates from the international seminar “Translocal Express. Jubilee Edition” which addressed the growing tendencies of nationalism on Eastern borders of Europe (from Helsinki to Istanbul) and its relation to contemporary art. Let’s not forget, that during this year many European nation states celebrate its 90th anniversary — these celebrations provide a vivid and indicative context to inspect and rethink the idea of nation and nation state but also the role of art in these ideological constructions.

In the upcoming seminar a number of contemporary art professionals –artists, curators and art historians — will give a comprehensive insight into the art scenes and dominant mentalities in the social realities they are active in. The aim of the seminar is to get an overview about diverse cultural and artistic situations from the perspective of national values. The series of inputs could become a ground from which to continue with comparative analyses, mapping and examining of similarities and differences.

Presentations by Kendra Ballingall (Winnipeg), Remco de Blaaij (Eindhoven), Övül Durmusoglu (Istanbul/Vienna), Ronen Eidelman (Tel Aviv/Weimar), Eva Fotiadi (Amsterdam), Erden Kosova (Istanbul), Johannes Paul Rather (Berlin), Sára Stenczer (Budapest/Paris), and Tamara Zlobina (Kiev), moderated by Rael Artel (Pärnu).

Detailed programme is published at www.publicpreparation.org

The seminar language is English.
For better management please register at info(at)publicpreparation.org

I’m participating in the Be[com]ing Dutch exhibition that is opening this week, but I will be creating a project my at the end of August. My work will be installed in different public places around the city. more information will follow closer to the instalment.

Be[com]ing Dutch
Van Abbemuseum
Eindhoven, NL
24/05/08 - 14/09/08

With the artists:
Petra Bauer, Abdellatif Benfaidoul, Michael Blum, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Phil Collins, Carla Cruz, Gerrit Dekker, Erwin van Doorn, Ronen Eidelman, Ed van der Elsken, Hadassah Emmerich, Alexandra Ferreira, Daan van Golden, Rana Hamadeh, Nicoline van Harskamp, Alicia Herrero, Hans van Houwelingen, Johan van der Keuken Annette Krauss, Agung Kurniawan, Surasi Kusolwong, Toos Nijssen, Ahmet Öğüt, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Bik Van der Pol, Ilya Rabinovich, Mario Rizzi, Mounira Al Solh, Fiona Tan, Oğuz Tatari, Alite Thijsen, Lidwien van de Ven, Tintin Wulia, Bettina Wind, Stephen Willats

The exhibition Be(com)ing Dutch is part of a large scale project that has been in progress for two years. During that time, the museum has focused on what have become sensitive issues for the Netherlands, such as identity, nationality, citizenship and social cohesion. In those two years artists, intellectuals, politicians and the people of Eindhoven were invited to find possible answers to awkward questions. What does ‘Being Dutch’ or ‘Becoming Dutch’ mean in the 21st Century? Who are ‘the Dutch’ anyway and how do we want to be seen by ourselves and others? The outcome of this whole process is being shown in an exhibition of artists’ works in the museum and throughout the city of Eindhoven.

Be(com)ing Dutch is unusual in the Netherlands because it takes on an outright political and social subject and translates it into artistic terms. Since 2006, when the Van Abbemuseum was awarded a prize that made it possible to turn our existing ideas into reality, the discussion in the Netherlands about who we are, where we come from, where we are heading and about our norms and values in a globalising world has become even more topical and urgent. The long term planning allowed the museum to talk with people at length and to organise major public discussions such as the Eindhoven Caucus. Now it is the turn of artists, many of whom have participated in all the stages of Be(com)ing Dutch, to show you what they have found. Twenty one of the thirty seven artists have conceived new works for the exhibition, guided by three broad directional themes: ‘Imaginary Past’, ‘ Imaginary Present’ and ‘Imaginary Future’. Enjoy!

Charles Esche & Annie Fletcher

http://www.vanabbemuseum.nl/

I’m showing the documentation of The Ghost of Manshia Awakes in Vienna, please come!

16/05/2008 – 26/10/2009
Opening: 15/05/2008, 07.30 p.m
Essl Museum, Exhibition Hall
Curators: Karin Schneider, Friedemann Derschmidt, Tal Adler, Amal Murkus

This exhibition of Israeli and Palestinian artists offers a rare and interesting opportunity to discuss different artistic practices from a conflicted area. Both Israeli and Palestinian societies contain a vast range of people, cultures and positions with rich and intertwined histories. This exhibition tries to bring together some of these voices, which overlap and sometimes contradict the more common and clearer positions usually heard.

Some of the 22 art projects that include all artistic media are shown for the first time. Many of them are based on civil society structures, as many of the artists in this show are themselves social and cultural activists. Four of the projects created for the exhibition are a result of artistic collaboration between some of the artists and civil society organizations, Israeli and Palestinian, who present interesting visions for understanding of the region and its challenges.

An information lounge with maps, glossaries and books will give visitors the possibility to better understand the complexity of this region and its connections with Austrian history – in particular the displacement and annihilation of Europe’s Jews during the Nazi-regime.

Artists: Tal Adler, Shalom Amira, Anisa Ashkar, Asad Azi, Raed Bawayah, Eyal Ben-Dov, Zoya Cherkassky und Avdey Ter-Oganian, Ronen Eidelman, Shula Keshet, Jumana Manna, Parrhesia, rites-institute, Yoav Weiss, Osama Zatar, Manar Zuabi, Masha Zusman

my new project, Medinat Weimar has started:

Shalom friends and future supporters,

Medinat Weimar the newly founded movement for a Jewish state in Thuringia, Germany, is in the process of drafting support for the movement.

We invite and encourage people from any background and nationally to become active members of the movement and take part in forwarding the vision based on the Thirteen Principles of the movement that you can read below.

If you support the movement please! Enter our website and fill the form of support.
http://medinatweimar.org/support/

Continue reading ‘The Movement for a Jewish State in Thuringia’

If you are in Amsterdam please come, and tell friends that you think will be interested. The video can been viewed on http://www.visualcorrespondents.com from the 15.04.08. Their will also be a nice small interview with me. check it out!

For those of you who read dutch, the video and texts: volkskrant.nl/oog

Visual Foreign Correspondents hereby invites you to come to the launch of the sixth issue during the Globalised Crystal Ball, the international debating program in de Balie Amsterdam On the 15th April 2008

In the old town of Weimar, Ronen Eidelman built an armoured jeep, commonly used by the Israeli border police (magav). A closer look betrays that it is a two-dimensional model, a fake, similar to the historic buildings of Weimar, which through historical manipulations try to recreate the town as the romantic Disneyland of the East, devoid of its questionable World War II past. Like the touristy postcard perfection of Weimar, the ubiquity of security and control mechanisms works as a façade. Both function as cover-ups for what is really underneath….

Ronen is an artist, writer and activist. He has participated in many self-organized exhibitions and festivals, founded and edited over five cultural, art and political journals/magazines and produced many events linking art, culture and grassroots politics. For the past ten years Ronen has been active in anti-occupation and anti-capitalist direct action groups.

The Globalised Crystal Ball #6
The Military-Strategic Future Predicted

In 2004 the United Nations published A more secure world: Our shared responsibility, which advised the international community how to tackle common threats. The report suggests that it is time for a new security consensus, one in which “we all share responsibility for each other’s security. And the test of that consensus will be action”.

Speakers are:
Thomas P.M. Barnett is senior Managing Director at Enterra Solutions.
Andrew Small works for the German Marshall Fund in Brussels since 2006 as the co-ordinator of work on China and transatlantic relations.
Awil Mohamoud is a political scientist and the founding director of SAHAN research & advice bureau.

http://www.debalie.nl/

Location
De Balie
Klein Gartmanplantsoen 10
Amsterdam
Tuesday the 15th of April at 20.00

All the photos from the project The Israeli Border police (Magav) in Weimar can be viewed (also in high-rez) with descriptions at my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maarav/sets/72157603830651117

The videos can be seen at on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/amhaaretz

Magav in front of the salon (my house)

Continue reading ‘magav around weimar, pics and clips’

hey, hello…
these are the comments made by the woman from the LandesverwaltungsAmt (Gauforum) made in regard to the jeep being parked on their property:
First, that all the property is theirs and public art is great, but you should ask for permission…
Then, that the Gauforum has such an ugly history in itself that they need to watch out about what messages are being sent and that she didn’t understand what this Russian military jeep is supposed to mean.
also, that recently the public access to the building, which was always permitted has been removed and quite a few people were upset about it. in these regards this symbol of military protection might be seen within that context…and could cause further reactions from the public.

oh, she also was warning about a possible problem with the police in case your shopping cart was ’stolen’ from a supermarket….
i think that was roughly it.
see u
Catherine

Magav in front of the German National Theatre

The photos from the project The Israeli Border police (Magav) in Weimar can be viewed (also in high-rez) with descriptions at my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maarav/sets/72157603830651117/

Original photo of jeep: Activestills.org
Photos: Anna Gierster, Catherine Grau, Laura Straßer, Nicolas Vionnet and Mike Young.
Videos: Kristina Draskovic and Catherine Grau.
Thanks!