The Neo Art Magazine

Last updated on September 9th, 2024 at 03:36 pm

Gender and the female body have been an artist’s muse since time immemorial. Hilla Ben Ari’s perception and deconstruction of gender perspectives through her unique art format leave a deep impression in the minds of appreciators.

A multidisciplinary artist mainly expressing through videos, sculptures, installation and print, this Tel Aviv-based artist’s works primarily revolve around the female body, which serves as a metaphorical junction where private, social and political conventions, restrictions and constructs are fused together. Ben Ari’s videos feature female figures in seemingly impossible positions, raising issues about the body’s limits. Thus, the body, caught between exquisite flexibility and the discomfort of retaining its stance, seems practically frozen, like a still photograph. Her works address the conflict between individual and communal identities via challenged female bodies.

Ben Ari’s repertoire dialogues with theatre and dance performance, bridging visual and performing arts. Ben Ari, a choreographer of stillness, works with dancers and musicians to explore movement and sound. Recent works by Ben Ari have focused on archive research. She has produced a trilogy on three forgotten Israeli artists, stressing their gender-related, mythological, historical, and social qualities and her intergenerational link with them.

In this conversation with TNA, Ben Ari talks about her inspiration, her choices and her creative process.

You have a very distinct form of art that combines the human body and other elements to form an installation. How and when did you know that this multidisciplinary form is your medium?

In my former years as an artist, the multidisciplinary aspect of my work evolved gradually due to various creative needs. Since then, multidisciplinary has become a significant part of my artistic language, and I’m always excited to expand its boundaries further. In the last decade, I’ve generated a dialogue with the creative fields of theatre and dance, thus creating an intersection of visual and performing arts. This conversation between the fields allows me to explore questions regarding cultural narratives and the presence of the female body within them.

How do you decide on the subject matter for your artwork? What do you think inspires your choices?

A central and ongoing theme in my work is the female body. I explore the perception of it in our culture, I raise questions regarding the boundaries of the body and its limitations, and I also deal with the way that the body can challenge our narratives. I’m inspired by myths and stories that I find charged from a gender perspective and seek to deconstruct them to rethink their cultural meanings.

In my projects from recent years, I’ve also corresponded with the works of artists who were active in various fields. In my video installation “The Voice that Calls to Itself” (2021), I created a choreography of body, paper, and light in a conversation with papercuts created by artist Moshe Reifer in the 1930s and dealt with themes such as trauma, otherness, and identity. In another major project, “Rethinking Broken Lines” (2017), I explored questions of gender, time and space through a dialogue with the works of the pioneering choreographer Heda Oren. “Na’amah” (2015), is a visual interpretation of the lost play “Tubal Cain” (1951), written by Nahum Benari, my great uncle. The work turns a rather marginal female character into a protagonist and subverts the content of the play to elicit new ideas and meanings about gender and community.

How has your artistic style evolved over time?

In my video works over the years, I have developed a choreography of stillness when the body looks almost frozen, trapped between a painful strain and a virtuosic pose in an endless loop. The repetitive movements and the stillness allow me to deal with the female trauma and explore the tension between devotion and resistance, between flatness and voluminousness. My first video works evolved from studying those themes in other mediums, such as sculpture and drawing. The first works I created in video included only single-channel format. Over the years, it evolved into multi-channel video installations in which I created more complex relations between the performing bodies. I call it “spatial choreography”, which means that it doesn’t have a temporal dimension like a regular choreography with a beginning and an end; rather, it has an endless duration in space, like a sculpture.

The stillness also allows me to play with time, to rethink the narrative and challenge its linearity.

Do you intentionally strive to maintain a consistent style in your work, or do you enjoy exploring different styles?

More in terms of artistic language than style. I can explore the same themes, materials, and forms for years, but each work and inquiry would be new and different. I always like to explore new ways of expression, to expand my artistic exploration, and to go beyond familiar boundaries. This state of insecurity is always part of my creative process.

Are there non-artistic influences, such as literature, music, or nature, that impact your creative process?

Literature, as well as theoretical texts, are great inspirations. Except for my art studies, I have a master’s degree in literature. I was also part of a unique program for Hebrew culture studies where I could immerse myself in fascinating textual materials and ideas that still resonate in my work.

Can you recall a specific experience or moment that significantly influenced your artistic direction?

I was born with an orthopaedic condition in my legs. Although it was very minor and almost invisible, it occupied a dominant place in my life. It was about overcoming physical limitations as well as experiencing shame and a sense of otherness throughout my childhood. Therefore, bodily experience has always been a significant part of my life, and many of my memories relate to it. When I retrospect my artistic path, it’s interesting to see the way I traversed from this starting point to creating choreography.

What have been some of the most significant challenges you’ve faced as an artist, and how did you overcome them?

There are so many different challenges for us artists, ranging from emotional and mental aspects to economic and physical factors. Artistic development evolves through those challenges. A supportive environment such as the one I have with my amazing partner and my wonderful therapist helps me grow as a person and artist, expand my artistic path, and realise my dreams.

Tell us about your recent project in New York that premiered in the New York Live Arts Centre in December 2023.

I was commissioned to create this project with the New York-based Limón Dance Company. The company was founded by the Mexico-born American choreographer José Limón in 1946 and has since performed worldwide. Dante Puleio, the company’s artistic director, and I met a few years ago in Florida. He visited my exhibition there and became familiar with my work. Several months passed, and he called me to suggest that I collaborate with the company. I was super excited and immediately jumped in. I watched all the materials of José Limón, and his creation “The Moor’s Pavane” from 1949 left a deep impression on me. The dance is based on Shakespeare’s Othello and includes only four characters from the play – Othello and his wife, Desdemona, and Yago and his wife, Emilia. I was fascinated by the charged relationship between the male and the female characters and the reflection and mirroring between the four dancers.

Thus, my project “I Must be Circumstanced” is a re-imagination of “The Moor’s Pavane”. Limón focused his work on power relationships, jealousy, and betrayal, which echo the male perspective on the story. At the same time, I wanted to bring the female voice to the fore, to listen to this marginal presence by amplifying it and giving it volume. In my work, I included only the roles of the two female characters, and I doubled them into a group of four. I created a hybrid choreography that merges video screenings and live performances. Through this reflective relationship, I explore the way that the female body can challenge the given narrative and tell a new story.

Featured Image Courtesy: Christopher Jones