Self-portrait of a Self-hating Jew

2011 (6) Self-portrait of a Self-Hating Jew (full version of Ury’s article in English), published in ​“Migra­tion, Commu­ni­ca­tion & Home — Jewish Tradi­tion, Change & Gender in a Global World”
Tania Reytan — Marincheshka, Editor. LIK Publishing House ISBN: 978−954−607−802−5 ISBN: 954−607−802−6 Sofia (BG)

List price: 16 Euro. For orders: arm​.bg​.org(at)gmail​.com

A compi­la­tion video DVD of Touch me Not (4.18 minutes) and the article Self-portrait of a Self-hating Jew (short version) with images (30 minutes) was produced in 2010.

Full-length version (on the British and German expe­ri­ence) 45 minutes
Short version (on just the German expe­ri­ence) 30 minutes

What is Jewish culture? Is it culture that concerns itself with Jewish iden­tity, history, reli­gion? Race? Is it constructed by artists who consider their Jewish origin as signif­i­cant? What of the work made by artists who do not consider their Jewish back­ground as being of signif­i­cance. How would one define Judaism? And who should be doing that?

These are some of the diffi­cult ques­tions raised by the exhi­bi­tion ​“The Right of the Image” (2003−04). And who defines what is Jewish art? German curator Hans Günter Golinski writes:

“The para­dox­ical situ­a­tion of artists from a Jewish back­ground, which ranges from normal to being a special case, furnishes them with a sharp­ened conscious­ness that distances them to society at large and makes them aware of the condi­tions of minori­ties.”¹

Refer­encing her own self-portrai­ture on themes of Jewish and female iden­tity, multi­media artist Tanya Ury discusses taboo zones and censor­ship in Great Britain and Germany. From a femi­nist posi­tion she ques­tions what is the female Jewish sign anal­o­gous to male circum­ci­sion, while touching on the taboo regarding the erotic corpse of the Holo­caust. Paral­lels are drawn between the Jewish school quota of Britain in the 1960’s and the female artist quota today regarding exhi­bi­tion repre­sen­ta­tion. Compar­isons are also made between England and Germany in their repre­sen­ta­tion of Jewish culture vis à vis Jewish Cultural days, Jewish museums and exhi­bi­tions on Jewish themes.

Refer­ring to popular and tradi­tional culture, but also the bible Ury exam­ines the story behind promi­nent Jewish men and the search for a Jewish art form by female inher­i­tors of this legacy.

1 ​“Some­where in between taking sides and distancing them­selves from a life in public.” Hans Günter Golinski: To the Themes in an Exhi­bi­tion, Page 25: Das Recht des Bildes — Jüdische Perspek­tiven in der modernen Kunst (The Right of the Image – Jewish Perspec­tives in modern art). Museum Bochum 2003-04 ed Hans Günter Golinski und Sepp Hiekisch-Picard. Museum Bochum on behalf of the city of Bochum, Heidel­berg: Published by Edition Braus im Wachter Verlag 2003

Tanya Ury

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Presen­ta­tion

2009 (24. – 26.3) Long version, March 26^th, 3:30 pm, A203, power point presen­ta­tion, guest lecturer, Depart­ment of Crit­ical Studies (German), Faculty of Creative and Crit­ical Studies, Univer­sity of British Columbia, Okanagan (CAN)

web​.ubc​.ca/​o​k​a​nagan

www​.bclo​cal​news​.com/en…

press as PDF

2009 (25. – 28.6) Short version, Migra­tion, Commu­ni­ca­tion and Home, Jewish Tradi­tion, Change & Gender in a Global Context, Bet Debora confer­ence, Sofia (BG)

2010 (6−10.6) DVD presented 4.15 pm on 8^th June at Jews/​Colour/​Race, a multi­dis­ci­pli­nary work­shop to be held at Ben-Gurion Univer­sity, Beer-Sheva (IL)

cmsprod​.bgu​.ac​.il

2012 (24.7) Tanya Ury presents the article Self-portrait of a Self-hating Jew at the 7^th Inter­na­tional Confer­ence on the Arts in Society, Art & Design Academy, John Moores Univer­sity, Liver­pool (GB)

2013 (15. & 16.2) Tanya Ury presents the première of weißer neger (white nigger), a live perfor­mance combined with video presen­ta­tion, from 5:30 – 7:00 PM on 15^th February at the East Ball­room Foyer, 3^rd Floor, New York, Hilton and Self-portrait of a Self-hating Jew, a keynote presen­ta­tion, 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM on 16^th February for the panel ​“From Lesser to Tanya Ury: German-Jewish Artists, 1890 — 2010”, 2013 College Art Asso­ci­a­tion Annual Meeting, New York Hilton (USA)

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Publi­ca­tions & Press

Artist’s Writ­ings & Publications

2011 (6) Self-portrait of a Self-Hating Jew (full version of Ury’s article in English), published in ​“Migra­tion, Commu­ni­ca­tion & Home — Jewish Tradi­tion, Change & Gender in a Global World”. Tania Reytan — Marincheshka, Editor. LIK Publishing House ISBN: 978−954−607−802−5 ISBN: 954−607−802−6 Sofia (BG)