Issue # 3 Bisan Abu Eisheh
Love Speech
Text by: Viktor Misiano
This work by Palestinian artist Bisan Abu-Eisheh is based on the letters his father sent from Israeli prison in 1980-1984, where he was incarcerated for taking part for taking part in Palestinian liberation front. Most of these letters were addressed to Latifa Idris – his future wife and the mother of the artist, whom he had met during his student years in Beirut. They are, in fact, love letters, although besides declarations of love they contain descriptions of prison life, worry for parents and friends. The repeated usage of "comrade Latifa", retelling of ideas and mentions of books on political economy reveal the communist beliefs of the author. Nonetheless, on the first screen the father of the artist, dressed in a formal suit, reads one of these letters into a microphone from a tribune, speaking words of love as a professional politician. One might ask what could two seemingly opposing types of speech, political and love, have in common? In reality they are linked by the unifying declarative character they possess, as noticed by French philosopher Alain Badiou. A love confession fixes the randomness of the encounter and becomes the start of a relationship. And just as in politics, love "is about uttering a word the effects of which, in existence, can be almost infinite". However, love-related in content and political in form, the speech in the work of Bisan Abu-Eisheh is spoken in the absence of an audience. This artistic device reveals the studied professionalism and empty rhetoric of political speech today, juxtaposing it to the texts of letters that speak of love, belief and hope that should become the basis of politics. Because politics, as Max Weber wrote, is a calling, not a profession, and so is identical to love.
Text by Viktor Misiano for: Don’t You Think It’s Time for Love?, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMoMA), Moscow, Russia.
Bisan Abu-Eisheh (1985) is an artist and PhD candidate at the University of Westminster, London. He is an M.A. Fine Art holder from Central Saint Martins, 2014. He has obtained his B.A. in contemporary visual art at the International Academy of Art – Palestine. He currently lives between London and Jerusalem.
Abu Eisheh has curated a number of international and local events/programs, including: Once Upon a City intervention in collaboration with Al Hoash, Jerusalem, 2018. Hospitalfield’s Summer School: Fieldworks 2016, under the title “Not Every Tent is The Same”, Arbroath, Scotland. Transmission Video Show, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, 2016.
Selected Group Exhibitions include: Clear-Hold-Build, 12 Gates Gallery, Philadelphia, USA (2019). HEKLER Medium: War, Memory, Protest, Red Hook Brooklyn, NYC, USA (2018). Subcontracted Nations, Al Qattan Cultural Centre, Ramallah (2018). Jerusalem Lives, the Palestinian Museum, Berziet (2017). Don’t You Think It’s Time for Love?, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMoMA), Moscow, Russia (2016). The Jerusalem Show VIII: Before and After, Jerusalem, Palestine (2016). Arte Útil Summit & Projects, Middleborough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Middleborough, England (2016). Glasgow International 2016, Bitter Rose project by Birthe Jorgensen and Tawona Sithole, Glasgow, Scotland (2016). Disrupted Intimacies, Goethe institute, Rmallah, Palestine & Al-Mamal foundations, Jerusalem (2016).Greetings to Those Who Asked About Me, CIC Cairo, Egypt (2015).ArtBat Festival, Almaty, Kazakhstan (2015). Too Early, Too Late, Bologna,Italy (2015). Afterimage: Rappresentazioni del conflitto, Galleria Civica di Trento, Italy (2015).Eva International Biennial/Ireland’s Biennial, Limerick, Ireland (2014). Hiwar “conversations in Amman”, Darat Al Funon, Amman, Jordan (2013). Points of Departure, ICA Gallery, London, UK (2013). Arrivals and Departures _ Mediterranean exhibition, Ancona, Italy (2012). The Jerusalem Show on/off Language, Jerusalem, Palestine (2011). The 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011). Belongings exhibition, Vita Havet Konstfack, Stockholm, Sweden (2011). World social forum photo exhibition, Jerusalem (2010). Inner abroad exhibition, international academy of art-Palestine, Ramallah (2010). Al-Rozana heritage festival, Berzeit, Ramallah (2009). On route exhibition, the international academy of arts-Palestine, Ramallah (2009). SIN festival, Al-Qattan foundation, Ramallah, Palestine (2009).
He has performed in several art events/projects including: Lecture performance at the Mosaic Rooms, London, UK, (2019). Friday Late night at V&A museum, London , UK (2012). Prayers by Dora Garcia, The Jerusalem Show, Al-Mammal foundation, Jerusalem (2009). Hello Jerusalem by Hello Earth Danish group, the Palestinian national theatre, Jerusalem (2009).
He has worked as an Assistant artist at the Return of The Soul exhibition by Jean Frere, the Palestinian art court (Al-Hoash), Jerusalem (2008). He has worked as an assistant curator for “Gaza Graffiti” project by the Swedish artist Mia Grondahl.
He was part of a student exchange with University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland (2010-11).
Selected Residencies includes: Art OMI International Residency Program, Ghent, NY, USA (2018). Culture + Conflict, London, UK (2016/2017)
Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen International Fellowship Program for Art and Theory, Innsbruck, Austria (2015). AIR Antwerpen residency program, Antwerp, Belgium (2014/15). Hiwar “Conversations in Amman” at Darat al Funon Foundation, Amman, Jordan. (2013). Radio Materiality at Vessel Art Project, Bari, Italy (2013). Points of Departure at The Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2012).
Viktor Misiano was born in Moscow in 1957. From 1980 till 1990 he was a curator of contemporary art at the Pushkin National Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. From 1992 to 1997 he was the director of the Center for Contemporary Art (CAC) in Moscow. He curated the Russian participation in the Istanbul Biennale (1992), the Venice Biennale (1995, 2003), the São Paulo Biennale (2002, 2004), and the Valencia Biennale (2001). He was on the curatorial team for the Manifesta I in Rotterdam in 1996. In 1993 he was a founder of the Moscow Art Magazine (Moscow) and has been its editor-in-chief ever since; in 2003 he was a founder of the Manifesta Journal: Journal of Contemporary Curatorship (Amsterdam) and has been an editor there since 2011. In 2005 he curated the first Central Asia Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In 2007 he realized large scale exhibition project “Progressive Nostalgia: Art from the Former USSR” in the Centro per l’arte contemporanea, Prato (Italy), the Benaki Museum, Athens, KUMU, Tallinn, and KIASMA, Helsinki. His latest exhibition project is “Impossible Community” realized in 2011 in Moscow Museum for Modern Art and awarded with the National “Innovation” prize as the “Best exhibition of the year”. From October 2010 he was Chairman of the International Foundation Manifesta. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the Helsinki University for Art and Design. He lives in Moscow (Russia) and Ceglie Messapica (Italy).