Yael Bartana, "Two Minutes to Midnight", 2021. Video still.

YAEL BARTANA. TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

WHAT IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD? Part 2

ΕΜΣΤ Screening Room-Mezzanine

Exhibitions cycle: WHAT IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD? Part 2

ΕΜΣΤ  presents Two Minutes to Midnight (2021), a video based on the two-hour long 2017 performance by Bartana entitled What if Women Ruled the World? In a room that resembles the film set of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964), a possible nuclear threat scenario unfolds. Contrary to the film, the council of the threatened country consists only of women. Specialists, in fields like defence, peaceful activism, philanthropy and politics, investigate ways to de-escalate international crises, contemplate whether it is better to die for an act of peace than survive a pre-emptive killing, and analyse the macho aspects of war, belligerence and territorial behaviour. In this deeply anti-war work, Bartana treats serious issues with humour but also highlights practical ways of dealing with global threats in an alternative to the dominant patriarchal power system. The title of the work refers to the Doomsday clock, a clock devised by scientists as a metaphoric reference to our proximity to the world’s end. When Yael Bartana realised the work, the doomsday clock was just two minutes before midnight. Today, the clock has moved forward to predict that we are now just 90 seconds before the end of the world.

Curator: Stamatis Schizakis

BIOGRAPHY

Yael Bartana was born in Israel in 1970. She currently lives and works in Berlin and Amsterdam. During the 1990s she studied in Jerusalem (Bezalel Αcademy), in New York (School of Visual Arts) and Amsterdam (Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten). Her work has been exhibited around the world: Jewish Museum in Berlin (2021), Stedelijk Museum in Amstedam (2015), Vienna Secession (2012), Moderna Museet, Malmo (2010) and MoMA PS1 in New York Υόρκη (2008). She has participated in the Sao Paolo Biennale (2014, 2010, 2006), Berlin Biennale (2012), Documenta 12 (2007), Istanbul Biennale (2005) and Manifesta 4 (2002). She has received numerous international awards for her work, such as the Principal Prize by the International Jury and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival (2010), the Anselm Kiefer Prize (2003), and more recently the International Female Artists Summit Award in Rome (2023). Her work is included in the collections of many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate Modern, London; and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Together with Ersan Mondtag, she will represent Germany in the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.

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