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| Courtesy Willy Brandt Center, Jerusalem |
To celebrate International Women’s Day, March 8th 2019, the Willy Brandt
Center (Jerusalem) hosted “Women Unite”, a panel evening to discuss women’s
status in the arts. Panel members were Muna Khleifi, Dalia Manor and Masha
Zusman, all women in the field of the arts; Petra Klose was the event’s
moderator.
Petra Klose, the Jerusalem Willy Brandt Center’s “Social Art” project
coordinator, opened the evening by welcoming guests (there were two men
present) and introduced the three panel members. She stressed that the subject
of women’s status in the arts was not an issue for just one day a year, but
that it should be an ongoing agenda. She mentioned that the Jerusalem WBC is
run solely by women but that in most organizations, men hold the senior
positions.
Each panel member spoke of her background and work. Born in the Ukraine,
Masha Zusman immigrated to Israel in 1989. As a child, she had wanted to engage
in music, dance and drawing, but ended up studying Physics, earning her PhD in
Theoretical Physics in 1999 from Ben Gurion University. At age 28, she enrolled
at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (Jerusalem), making her way into the
world of art with great success. Zusman’s work has been exhibited in numerous
solo and group exhibitions including the Tate Modern, London; Essl Museum,
Vienna; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; and the Tel
Aviv Museum of Art. In 2005, Zusman co-founded the Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem,
a socially engaged, independent, artist-run space, in which she is currently
still involved. She is an activist and teacher and has been teaching in the
Fine Arts Department of the Bezalel Academy since 2007.
Muna Khleifi lives in Ramallah. Not an artist, as a young girl she did have
contact with the arts, taking part in after-school activities. Working with the
British Council, the first organization to present overseas arts to the Arab
community, she was promoted to being project manager, bringing guest artists to
hold workshops and present such events as Shakespearean plays. Her most
conscientious project was bringing the musical “Stomp”, with its large cast, to
perform at a festival in Ramallah. Khleifi changed jobs, taking on the
role of project administrator of the Barenboim Foundation. Her close connection
with music stemmed from her children, who both studied music, and her
involvement with their music studies. In her work with the Barenboim
Foundation, she brought renowned artists to perform for the Arab community. The
Barenboim-Said Music Centre offers tuition in European music to local children.
She spoke of problems to be solved - the fact that this music was unfamiliar to
the community and that Palestinians were not in the habit of sending girls to
learn music. As the result of her working through schools and making
contact with parents, things have changed; many children now attend the
conservatory, taking part in five concerts a year.
Art historian Dr. Dalia Manor studied at Tel Aviv University, where most
art history students at the time were women. She then taught art history in
high schools and wrote art criticism in newspapers, also engaging in curatorial
work. Dalia Manor’s major focuses are Israeli art, modern art and national
identity and she has published numerous articles, catalogues and reviews on art
in Israel. Her book “Art in Zion” deals with the link between art and national
ideology, specifically between the artistic activity that emerged in Jewish
Palestine in the first decades of the 20th century and the Zionist movement.
After living in London for 12 years Manor returned to Israel, teaching in
colleges and doing curatorial work. Eight years ago, she became director and
curator of the Negev Museum of Art.
Dalia Manor spoke of the fact that the latest survey (2017) has showed that
in art exhibits at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Israel Museum, only 30%
of exhibits were by women; this was higher than in previous surveys. She added
that this statistic was no lower than in many other countries. She pointed out
that the market value of male (living) artists is higher. Due to this
conservatism, women artists have been pushed aside. She said that change is
coming about slowly. The Bezalel School, for example, is intent on finding a
female department head, but so far without success. Khleifi spoke of there
being many successful women in the Palestinian music industry, but that they
are not part of the management; decisions are still left to men. She spoke of
the fact that there are many Palestinian women artists, but that the majority
are men. Zusman spoke of the tiny Barbour Gallery in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighbourhood,
of which she was one of the five founders; the other four were men, but that
the ratio is now changing. Still involved in it, she said that the “female
touch” should continue, that women have a totally different vibe and manage to
solve problems more easily. Masha Zusman is enjoying success in her teaching
job at Bezalel and is seeing more and more successful women artists.
There was some discussion about women’s work in the plastic arts. Manor
said that it has often been considered to be too much about the body and the
emotions. Till now, in which case, being recognized as a good artist has meant
women needing to paint like men.
Present at the event, Stephanie Merdler, international relations manager of
the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra Foundation, told those present that the
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1936, but that the first woman to
conduct the IPO did so only in 2018! Following initial reticence among the
orchestral players, the atmosphere warmed up to the conductor as they worked
with her, the end result being that there was excitement in the air. Stephanie
Merdler also emphasized the need to promote women composers here and overseas.
The artists and audience began to discuss how to bring about change in
women’s status in the arts. One audience member claimed that much would depend
on good curating to choose fine women artists. Another spoke of the relevance
of where the money was coming from. Dalia Manor spoke of the importance
of awareness, that art history teachers should not only teach their students
about male artists, but bring their attention to the great women artists of the
early 20th century and earlier. Muna Khleifi said that the empowering of women
should come from the media, the home and education in the schools, even in
pre-school education. (She did mention, however, that some women in high
positions tend to suppress other women!) She said a woman of skills should just
be herself, what she is, and take initiative to do what she believes in, this
saving her the energy needed to struggle. One year, Masha Zusman and her colleagues
of the Barbur Gallery noticed that all the exhibits had been works of male
artists, so they changed their principles on the matter. Masha Zusman is now
seeing more and more successful women artists. Dalia Manor insists that we
still have a lot of work to do, that she puts hope in the younger men in top
positions promoting women and that we should challenge the public to demand
more presence of women in the arts.
Following the symposium, panel members and guest mingled to exchange ideas
over a glass of wine.
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