IMAGE OF HAPPINESS
About First Mediterranean Videonale
Welcome to the first international video biennale, which takes place in Haifa's urban public space every two years. Twenty contemporary international video artists bring art into the daily life of shops, businesses, and educational institutions, scattered throughout the city. Various video exhibitions outline an alternative cultural map for diverse audiences wandering through the city.
VIDEONALE IS A SITE-SPECIFIC DIRECT ART PLATFORM. WE ENCOURAGE BOUNDARY-CROSSING DISCUSSIONS OF BURNING SOCIAL ISSUES AND FOSTER A CULTURAL EXCHANGE. TO CREATE A BRIDGE BETWEEN PEOPLE, WE BRING ART OUT OF SHELTERED HALLS, TURNING THE ENTIRE CITY INTO AN ART SPACE.
Following the invention of Sony's first portable video camera in the early 1960s, which made it possible to film everywhere and anytime, video became an independent medium and quickly grew in popularity. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was taken on by female artists as an alternative medium. It became an expressive tool, allowing direct dialogue between the viewer and the artwork from a female perspective. Feminist art, which emerged as part of the second wave of feminism alongside the civil rights struggles, sought to challenge the male hegemony and examine women's lives, status, and social realities in new ways. The video camera's accessibility, mobility, and immediacy led many woman artists to experiment with this medium, unbound by the artistic male canon.
The field pioneers, including Valie Export and Joan Jonas, soon adopted the new technology and paved the way for the many women who followed. Feminist art sought a new narrative to acknowledge women’s unique and central contribution to culture and grant them equal rights. In this context, feminist artists set out to change the power relations in the art world, rewrite art history, and challenge the male-dominated canon. The shared goal was to promote equality while undermining the old-fashioned norms pertaining to the female gender, introducing representations of women, and pointing at the erasure of women and their achievements in history in general and in the field of art in particular. Feminist art thus created new opportunities and artistic spaces for women and paved the way for the activist art of the 1980s.
IMAGE OF HAPPINESS features works by twenty woman artists from six countries who engage in video art, with emphasis on video actions and performances. The works address the complexity of women's world in relation to various cultural and psychological aspects. From the very outset of feminist art, which took a multidisciplinary direction, artists used their bodies as a medium, a language, and a means to express their personal, gender, and sexual identity. The exhibition presents a selection of video works centered on a woman’s body pushed to extreme situations, a psycho-sociological analysis of female gestures, and an introduction of female sexuality and eroticism into various social situations. The artist's body is a raw material, a basis for the creative gesture, a tool, and an artistic vehicle to raise awareness. That is not only aesthetic but also critical art. The works inspire the viewer to doubt the social and political climate, thereby seeking to create an impact and change toward equality.