Yael Bartana: And Europe Will be Stunned
pma-yael-bartana-2017-01-web.jpg
Yael Bartana, And Europe Will Be Stunned, 2007-2011, film still from Mary Kozmary (Nightmares),2007. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Walker Art Center.
Israeli filmmaker and installation artist Yael Bartana reimagines historical narratives in her immersive installation And Europe Will be Stunned, presented by the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the first US commission of the Center-supported project Yael Bartana (working title). The solo exhibition is dedicated to the artist’s provocative film trilogy, And Europe Will Be Stunned (2007–11), taking the complex history of Jewish-Polish identity as its point of departure in addressing themes of nationhood, memory, and belonging that are integral to Bartana’s work.
Beyond the walls of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the site-specific public performance Bury Our Weapons, Not Our Bodies! combines funerary tradition, military ritual, and personal testimony to challenge systems of violence and displacement. The performance will include a staged procession and a series of eulogies on September 22.