Sigalit Landau, Barbed Hula, 2001
Sigalit Landau
Barbed Hula

Born 1969 in Jerusalem, Sigalit Landau studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (where she earned a BFA in 1993). She took part in an exchange programme at Cooper Union School of Art, New York, from 1990 to 1994. She currently lives in Tel Aviv. Since 1995, she has had many solo and group exhibitions in many international venues, such as the MoMA in New York, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin and Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

artist's website: www.sigalitlandau.com

This work features the artist standing naked on an Israeli beach between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, dancing the hula with a hoop made of barbed wire. The work oscillates between profanity, with her playful swinging of the hoop, and religion insofar as the artist’s performance refers to ritual, flagellation and self-sacrifice. As in many of her video, installation, performance and sculpture works, the artist is concerned here with the deformation of the self, also against the backdrop of the current political situation in Israel. With this in mind, Barbed Hula also acquires a socio–political dimension through the implications of the border conflicts between Israel and Palestine symbolised by the barbed wire and juxtaposed with the vulnerability of the human body.

Courtesy Sigalit Landau

Document media
Video, colour, sound, 1:52 min

Issue date
2001

Tags
conflict, pain, violence, skin, vulnerability