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There is a significant difference between the Palestinian artists beyond the Green Line and the ones being called “the Palestinian artists of 48”. The artist from 48 are usually divided between the older painters and sculptors who acted during the 1970s and the 1980s, for instance Halil Ryan, Ibrahim Nubani and Abed Abdi, the latter one is considered to be a pioneer in the Arab Israeli art movement, and to the younger generation which became active after the Oslo agreements and now amounts to more than 200 art school graduates creating mainly installations, photography, video art and performances. The last decade shows a noticeable increase in the number of Palestinian students in Israeli art academies such as in the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Hisham Zreiq, Ahlam Shibli, Sami Bukhari, Reida Adon, Ashraf Fawakhry, Ahlam Jomah, Jumana Emil Abboud, and Anisa Ashkar are Palestinian artists - most of whom are graduates from art schools in Israel and form part of an entire generation of Palestinians, citizens of Israel born after 1967.

The issue of identity for Palestinian citizens of Israel is a key subject of importance to the artwork produced. It is an identity described by Azmi Bishara thus:

From both the historical and theoretical perspectives, the Arabs in Israel are part of the Palestinian Arab people. Their definition as 'Israeli Arabs' was formed concurrent with the emergence of the issue of the Palestinian refugees, and the establishment of the State of Israel on the ruins of the Palestinian people. Thus, the point of departure from which the history of the Palestinians in Israel is written is the very point in which the history of the Palestinians outside Israel was created. One cannot point at a nationality or national group called 'Israeli Arabs' or 'the Arabs of Israel'.

Ben Zvi suggests that this definition pinpoints the dialectic underpinning the identity of this group of artists who are identified "on the one hand, as part of a broad Palestinian cultural system, and on the other — in a differentiated manner — as the Palestinian minority in Israel."

The issue of identity becomes particularly clear in an artwork of the Palestinian artist Raafat Hattab from Jaffa. The video performance “untitled” was part of the exhibition “Men in the Sun” in the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in 2009. In the work, Raafat Hattab is seen as he poures water into a bucket in order to lengthily water an olive tree, a sign of the lost land through the Nakba. The scene is primed by the song Hob (Love) by the Lebanese Ahmad Kaabour which expresses the need for Palestinian solidarity. The chorus repeats the phrase "I left a place” and it seems as if the video is dealing with memory. But as the camera zooms out, the spectator realizes that Hattab and the olive tree both actually stand in the middle of the Rabin Square, a main place in Tel Aviv, and the water used for watering the tree comes from the nearby fountain. "In my installations I appear in different identities that combined are my identity — a Palestinian minority in Israel and a queer minority in the Palestinian culture", explains Rafaat Hattab in an interview with the Tel Avivian City Mouse Magazine.

Israeli art historian Gideon Ofrat argues that understanding Palestinian art requires familiarity with the complexities of Palestinian culture, language and history, and therefore attempts by Israeli art critics to analyze Palestinian art are doomed to failure.

Exhibitions of Palestinian art in Israel

Israeli museums

In 2008, the L. A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art in Jerusalem, a museum mainly dedicated to antiquities and ethnographic works, presented the first show of local Arab contemporary artist in a public Israeli museum. It was also the first exhibition in an Israeli museum which was organised by an Arab curator, Farid Abu Shakra.

The theme of the exhibition, Correspondence, is dealing with the complex situation of Arab citizens in Israel. It can be seen as a reflexion on the different cultures to which Arab artists in Israel are exposed, on Western influences and Arab traditions, Jewish life, Palestinian cause and the search of a proper identity. Although not all art works presented are political, many refer to collective experiences of the Palestinian people, showing lost Arab villages and divided landscapes and evoking thus the Nakba. Besides the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, some works question traditions and customs within the Arab culture by dealing with gender and superstition.

According to the director of the Museum, the Jewish Israeli Rachel Hasson, it was rather difficult to raise funds for the exhibition among Jewish, Muslim or Arab communities. In the Art Newspaper she is quoted: “For Arabs, we are not Arab enough and for Jews, we are not Jewish enough.”

In summer 2009, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art held the exhibition “Men in the Sun” presenting art works by 13 Palestinian contemporary artists who live and work in Israel. The name of the exhibition is borrowed from Ghassan Kanafani's novel with the same title. The show was curated by the Palestinian artist and architect Hanna Farah-Kufer Bir'im and the Jewish Israeli art historian Tal Ben Zvi. The participating artists were from different generations and using different techniques from painting to video installations and architecture. The leitmotif of the exhibition was location and territory. Most of the works deal with the sense of belonging to the Palestinian territory, some evoke the right to return or are about the forgotten history of places like in Jaffa.

In the beginning of 2012, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in a collaboration with the Um el-Fahem Art Gallery showed a retrospective of the Arab Israeli artists Walid Abu Shakra. The show was curated by the Jewish Israeli Irith Hadar and Walid’s brother Farid Abu Shakra. Born in Umm el-Fahem in 1946 and now based in London, the exhibition shows the strong ties which Walid Abu Shakra holds with his birthplace. The name of the exhibition, “Mintarat al-Batten”, refers to a hill near his hometown which, due to its strategic position, became the site of a watchtower. Because of the population explosion in the region, the picturesque landscapes are disappearing and the slopes of the watchtower hill are now covered with new residential neighbourhoods. The artist hoped that thanks to the exhibition, “all my friends, family and residents of the village who came to see the work will show more love and seriousness in their attitude toward the landscape that remains in the village.“

The idea for the exhibition and its collaboration with the Um el-Fahrem Art Gallery was a fruit of the friendship between Mordechai Omer, the former director of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Abu Shakra family. Omer died before the opening of show.

The Umm el-Fahem Museum of Contemporary Art project

In 1996, Said Abu Shakra, the third brother of the Abu Shakra family, founded in his hometown Umm el-Fahem the only art gallery for Palestinian and Arab art in Israel and has now plans for its extension. He wants to build a museum nearby the city which would be the first contemporary art museum of the Arab sector in Israel. The project, worth 30 Million Dollar, is still at an early stage. In an international competition, Amnon Bar Or, Lior Tsionov, and Lior Vitkon,a team of Jewish architects, had been chosen. With the help of the American Friends of Umm el-Fahem (AFUEF) and the Middle East Center for the Arts (MECA), funds had been raised to secure the first phase of the project.

The museum shall not only host exhibitions but also an archive collecting testimonies of Arab “elders” who witnessed the conflicts of the 20th century. The oral testimonies – ranging from the British mandate period to the creation of the Israeli state and the Arab-Israeli wars – are transcribed in Arabic, Hebrew and English and photographs are taken. Established in 2008, 250 testimonies are already recorded of which one third has died since. Along with the museum, there will be classrooms and an auditorium for Arab Israeli students, a library and a café. The existing gallery has already begun to acquire a collection for the further museum through donations and gifts. Thus, works of artists like Fatma Abu Roumi, Assam Abu Shakra, Tyseer Barakat, Asaf Evron, Khalid Hourani, Menashe Kadishman, and Sliman Mansour are already in its possession. In addition to the contemporary art, the museum will also expose traditional Arab embroidery works from the local region.

According to The Guardian, Said Abu Shakra wants to create thus “an inviting place, capable of embracing and enriching; bridging gaps and connecting different cultures. All of this in the heart of a troubled, war-weary region," where "Jewish people [have] the chance to touch the pain, the history and the culture of Arab people"

Galleries

In 1996, after 25 years of police service, Said Abu Shakran decided to open the first art gallery in Israel entirely dedicated to contemporary Palestinian art in his hometown Umm el-Fahem, the Umm el-Fahem Art Gallery. Nevertheless, besides Palestinian and Arab artists, the gallery does also showcase Jewish and foreign artists. Indeed, when in 1999 Yoko Ono exhibited her art in the gallery, the institution came to public attention. According to the bbc, the Japanese artist wanted "to "balance" a show of her work in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem". Some of her art work is still shown in the permanent exhibiton of the gallery.

The Gallery promotes mainly temporary shows, dealing with a wide range of subjects but sometimes with a special focus on memory and history of the region. This is in accordance with the 2008 started project of an archive collecting Palestinian testimonies (see XXX). Besides the exhibitions and the archive, the gallery offers symposiums, activities and educational workshops around topics such as art but also sensitive issues such as the role of women or children at risk.

Umm el-Fahem, the biggest Arab city in Israel, is known for its conservative Islam but Said Abu Shakran says that he does not have any problems with anybody in the town. None of the exhibitions shows nudity and the gallery invites the town’s religious leaders to its exhibition openings.

In 2010, the Palestinian artist Ahmad Canaan and the Jewish Israeli entrepreneurs Amir Neuman Ahuvia and Yair Rothman established the Jaffa Art Salon. First planned as a contemporary exhibition and hosted by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, it turned thanks to its success into an established gallery. The gallery is located in an old warehouse in the Jaffa port. From 2010 to 2011, the gallery hosted shows from various Palestinian artists from within the Israeli territory and from beyond the Greenline and from Gaza. Since 2012, the Art Salon opened it shows featuring both Jewish Israeli and Arab artists.