Yishay Garbasz

Yishay Garbasz (born 1970 in Israel ) is a British-Israeli artist who works in the fields of photography , installation and performance . Her work deals with autobiographical topics such as the Holocaust past in her family and her identity as a transgender artist. Garbasz is politically committed to increasing the visibility of (trans) women in the art world and sees herself as a feminist.

Life

Yishay Garbasz grew up as the child of a Holocaust survivor in Herzlia . Garbasz's mother Salla was born in Berlin in 1929, fled with the family to Holland in 1933 and was deported to Westerbork transit camp in 1942 at the age of 14 and then to Theresienstadt concentration camp . Via Auschwitz-Birkenau she came to Christianstadt and from there in April 1945 on one of the notorious death marches to the Bergen-Belsen camp , where she was liberated by the British. The father was born in Poland and was able to escape the Holocaust at the age of 14 by emigrating to Australia. Yishay Garbasz later said that her mother's past shaped her a lot, although it was never discussed, and that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder . As an adult, she worked on the disturbance and the aftermath of the difficult relationship with her mother with the art project In my Mother's Footsteps . After serving in the army in Israel, Garbasz studied photography from 2000 to 2004 with Stephen Shore at Bard College in New York State, USA. Garbasz has lived and worked mainly in Berlin since 2008.

Work (selection)

In my Mother's Footsteps (2004-2009)

In the extensive photo project In my Mother's Footsteps , Garbasz dealt intensively with her mother's experiences during the Holocaust. Equipped with a bulky large camera, the artist visited every single place where her mother was forced to live at the time. Garbasz covered large parts of her journey on foot in order to better understand the mother's path and the hardships that went with it. The heavy large-format camera and the nowadays unusual way of taking photos under a black cloth forced Garbasz to spend a lot of time in the respective places and thus to approach the scenes emotionally. Garbasz showed the results of her work to her mother, who died shortly afterwards. From the photo project, which was shown as an exhibition in Tokyo (Wonder Site and Wako Works of Art, 2009) and in the USA (Northwood University International Creativity Conference April 2010), a book with the same title was created in 2009. The book was nominated for the German Photo Book Award 2009.

Becoming (2008-2010)

In her Zeotrop project Becoming , Garbasz dealt with her body and its changes one year and one year after her sex reassignment surgery . During the work schedule, she took a photo of her naked, changing body every weekend. The photos were processed in a massive, human-sized miracle drum (Zeotrope) that was exhibited at the Busan Biennale 2010. In addition, a corresponding flip book was created, which was published by Mark Batty Publisher-Verlag in 2010.

The Number Project

In The Number Project focused on an artistic documentation of physical changes. Garbasz burned the concentration camp number “A 2867” on his arm, which her mother had tattooed in the Auschwitz concentration camp and later surgically removed. After that, Garbasz photographed the changes in the wound and the gradual fading of the burn for a month.

Eat me Damien

Eat me Damien is a humorous provocation of the art world and commerce: Garbasz placed the testicles that were removed during the operation in formaldehyde in an aquarium - a reminiscence of the also inlaid shark by the British artist Damien Hirst . The object was exhibited at the Miami Art Fair .

Ritual and reality

In Ritual and Reality, Garbasz explored the trauma after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan . From her three-week trip through the restricted area in 2013, she brought color photos, videos and a self-made audio guide with her. The results were shown in 2014 at the Feldman Gallery in New York. A critic of the New York Times explicitly praised the audio guide in his report: “Her engaging, meditative voice sounds a lot like Werner Herzog's, and what she says is profoundly sobering.” (German: “Your engaging, meditative voice sounds like that by Werner Herzog, and what she says is fundamentally sobering. ")

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

• 2014: Ronald Feldman Fine Art, NYC, Ritual & Reality
• 2013: Kniznick Gallery at the Women's Studies Research Center (WSRC) at Brandeis University. Coming Home, Pictures of Jewish women
• 2010: Northwood University International Creativity Conference
• 2009: Tokyo Wonder Site, In My Mothers Footsteps
• 2009: Wako Works of Art (Tokyo), In My Mothers Footsteps
• 2008: Chaing Mai museum of art, Thailand In My Mothers Footsteps
• 2007: Jia-dong, Taiwan: In The Same House: Where a family lived for four or more generations (permanent exhibition)
• 2007: Meinong Hakka Museum, Taiwan: In The Same House: Where a family lived for four or more generations
• 2006–2007: Cicero political gallery, Berlin: The Fence (photo exhibition)
• 2005: Norderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen, Holland: In My Mothers Footsteps
• 2004: Breltsman Campus Center, Bard College, NY: Israel in More Than One Dimension
• 2004: Woods Studio, Bard College, NY: Being Seen

Group exhibitions (selection)

• 2012: Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY, Have We Met Before
• 2010: Busan Biennale, South Korea: In My Mother's Footsteps , Becoming
• 2010: Ronald Feldman Fine Art, NYC: Resurrectine
• 2010: Wako Works of Art, Tokyo: Print & Bound
• 2007: Kio-A-Thau, Taiwan: In The Same House: Where a family lived for four or more generations
• 2007: Bangkok, Thailand: Being Seen
• 2004: Hillel Foundation, Washington, DC: Israel in More Than One Dimension

Publications

• In My Mother's Footsteps . Text (s) by Yishay Garbasz and Jeffrey Shandler, 2009, Cantz-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7757-2398-5
• Becoming . Mark Batty Publisher, 2010.

Web links

• yishay.com (homepage of the artist)
• Installation of Becoming 2010 (video)
• Becoming: A Gender Flipbook (Video)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the Inheritance of Post-Traumatic Memory ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Interview with Thiiird Magazine , accessed March 6, 2017  
2. ↑ The Art of Living , Tagesspiegel of November 14, 2010, accessed on March 6, 2017
3. ↑ Information for books and authors from Cantz- Verlag , accessed on March 6, 2017.
4. ↑ Trauma and Identity: An Interview with Yishay Garbasz , Berlinartlink.com, April 19, 2016, accessed March 6, 2017
5. ↑ Homepage of the Feldman Gallery ( Memento of the original from March 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 6, 2016 
6. ↑ Yishay Garbasz: "Ritual and Reality" ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , New York Times March 6, 2014, accessed March 6, 2017