art censorship in Israel
Image generated by DALLE, an AI model.
In this blog I'm exploring the ways art is received and perceived when it has a political import. Most specifically, I examine what triggers ignite censorship of art in Israel. In this part of the site I write about the attempts to limit and censor art in Israeli society and share with you the archive I created of those attempts which I find pertinent to my artistic endeavor.
In the cases I present the Israeli government, a cultural institution or the public itself has demanded some kind of censorship on art or an artist.
The main questions I ask are when art is perceived as having a problematic statement and what are the triggers for censoring art in Israel.
There are variety of reasons for art censorship in Israel, and while researching I came across many cases of art that was censored because it contained sexuality, violence or harm to a person or property.
However, I have decided to focus mainly on art that was censored for reasons that emphasize how the social and political conditions in Israel do not allow an artistic activity to convey a political message.
I'll ask what is the limit or painful points that artists mark through a visual image (an image that may be read in a certain way, but the artist's opinions and intentions may differ from this reading). I believe that reading this blog will make it clear
that exposing the truth is not a guiding principle in the culture institutions in Israel. These institutions often place values such as 'nationalism' and 'security' as more important than freedom of expression.
As I progressed in writing this blog, I realized that art censorship has always existed in the Israeli society, and that the way censorship changes is not linear. The way art can touch issues like the Holocaust changed after the Eichmann's trial and what can be said about a politician changed after prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.