Not only green pastures

An exhibition of interpretations of historic JNF posters cosponsored by the organization and Beit Avi Chai shows a surprising amount of criticism of the Zionist institution

By BARRY DAVIS
Itay Hershkovitz’s ‘Water.’150 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Itay Hershkovitz’s ‘Water.’150
(photo credit: Courtesy)
An intriguing exhibition, which goes by the name of “Deep-Rooted,” opened recently at Beit Avi Chai, which purportedly celebrates the 111th anniversary of the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund. The reason behind the use of the mitigatory adverb in the name is due to the unusual conditions of the exhibition. While the display is taking place under the auspices of both the host organization and the KKL-JNF, not all of the exhibits – posters designed by 13 second-year students in the Visual Communications Department of the Holon Institute of Technology – are entirely complimentary towards the KKL-JNF. In fact some lean heavily towards derision.
Then again, considering the explanatory line that follows the exhibition name in the PR blurb, which reads “a new interpretation of historic JNF posters,” the end result is not that surprising.
Yossi Lemel, who curated “Deep-Rooted” and is an internationally acclaimed lecturer, curator and designer, sheds some light on the multi-pronged spread at Beit Avi Chai. “You can look at the name in various ways,” suggests Lemel. “Taken at face value, ‘Deep-Rooted’ [the original name in Hebrew is ‘Amok Be’adama,’ which literally translated means ‘Deep in the Ground’] means something whose roots are wellembedded in the ground. On the other hand, being deep in the ground also means you are buried, and metaphorically, that can imply that you don’t live in reality, that you are stuck.”
Before getting down to work on their creations, the 13 students attended a seminar, initiated by the co-sponsors of “Deep-Rooted,” during which they addressed the KKL-JNF as a historic organization and a Zionist institution, and examined its relevance and validity to the contemporary State of Israel. The students were granted carte blanche respecting the kind of message they wishes to convey, and how to express it. One poster, for example, designed by Noy Gvishi, shows a smartly attired, portly gent rushing by with the iconic blue KKL-JNF donation box, with the words “Dofkim Kupa” above. The latter means something along the lines of “making a pretty penny,” but is also a play on the word “kupa,” which may be translated as “box,” i.e., the said blue box, and also “kitty” or “cash register.” The poster subtitle states that the KKL-JNF is an organization that receives donations while also making money on land transactions. The implication is clear, and none too approbative as far as the KKL-JNF is concerned.
Some of the posters reference earlier works, such as Keren Afias’s work of an idyllic arrangement of a school building, a Tnuva dairy plant, a workers’ committee building and various other entities that are clearly taken from a utopian Zionist setting. That is conveyed even more plainly by the presence of a miniature print of Zvi Berger’s original picture from the early 1960s, The Village – the only and highly prominent difference being that Afias’s offering has the perfect scene closed off behind imposing iron gates with a stop sign, and the word “stop” in Arabic under the sign.
Lemel says there was a degree of “toing and froing” over some of the exhibits, but is full of praise for the KKL-JNF for accommodating the overt criticism.
“It wasn’t easy, and maybe the fact that the JNF sanctioned some of the posters is a reflection of its maturity. The criticism was part and parcel of the students’ project.”
In addition to the posters there is an entertaining item at the entrance to the display hall, with the 13 students arranged in the manner of the participants in the Last Supper of Jesus and his 12 disciples. Lemel is back and center in the classroom mockup scene, with his arms spread as he presumably directs the discourse.
But there are a decent number of laudatory works in there, too. One example is a three-part salute to the KKL-JNF, courtesy of Itay Hershlovitch, which praises the organization’s efforts to cultivate forests, acquire and develop land, and build reservoirs. Meanwhile, Sahar Hafuta’s cute play on Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree could be read either way. The legend “and the tree was happy” appears on the tree trunk, while the little boy stretches to slot a coin into the KKL-JNF blue box extended by the one of the tree’s branches. But is the tree happy because of the boy’s contribution to Israel’s development, or is the tree simply a money-grubbing creature? Lemel says the subtext, across all of the creations, is intentional. “We tested the boundaries. That was an integral part of the project, to try to break through boundaries, and not only to try to see where the Green Line – literally – runs, but also to see where the red line runs.”
The Green Line is a central component of Ben-Zion Binder’s poster, The JNF, Israel’s Green Line, which references the fact that the KKL-JNF’s forestation efforts are concentrated almost exclusively to the western side of the Green Line. Binder’s intent is accentuated by the inclusion of a small reproduction of an aerial shot of Yatir Forest, to the south of Mount Hebron, which shows a clear demarcation line between the tree-saturated west side and the barren east side. “We had a lot of discussions and debates on all sorts of things, before the project started,” Lemel continues, “from the name of the exhibition to how to juxtapose the posters. Things did not run smoothly throughout.”
The curator says the idea was not to look for contentious issues, but to take what was out there to some creative plane. “I explained to the students that they should work with the information that is already out there, in the public domain.”
Lemel is co-owner of a Tel Aviv advertising agency and, as such, constantly engages in the poster format.
“You can convey very powerful messages with a single image,” he notes. “In fact, I would say that a good poster is really an icon – and an icon can have almost magical powers, if you get it right.”
The members of the public have until the end of August to judge where the student artists in the “Deep-Rooted” exhibition got it right. •
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