Lecture of Avi Mograbi, organized by the Chair of Artistic Studies. 20th / 21st centuries

Lecture of  Avi Mograbi,  israeli filmmaker and acticst, organized by the Chair of Artistic Studies. 20th / 21st centuries.

Avi Mograbi

One of Israel’s most celebrated non-fiction filmmakers, Avi Mograbi (b. 1956) specializes in urgent, impassioned diagnoses on the state of the nation, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. Mograbi is known for prominently inserting himself into his films as a director and concerned citizen struggling to understand or meaningfully synthesize all that he’s witnessing and filming. Another Mograbi trademark is the shocking eruption of humor in the midst of reflecting on the region’s injustices. Mograbi’s latest film, Z32, returns to a major theme of his previous work and especially Avenge but One of My Eyes (2005): an investigation of the way the military dehumanizes both soldiers and “the enemy” and, by extension, Israeli society as a whole.

Filmography

2016      Between Fences, 85 min.

2012      Once I entered a garden, 100 min.

2009      Details 11 – 13, 11 min.

2008      Z32, 82 min.

2006      Mrs. Goldstein, 9 min.

2005      Avenge but one of my two eyes, 100 min.

Deatils 5 – 10, 13min.

‏2004      Detail, 8 min

Details 2&3, 9 min.

Detail 4, 5 min.

2002      August, 72 min.

Wait, It’s the soldiers, I’ll hang up now. 13 min.

2000      At the back, 32 min.

Will you please stop bothering me and my family, 3 min in loop

1999      Relief, 5 min. in loop

1999      Happy Birthday Mr. Mograbi, 77 min.

1997      How I learned to overcome my fear and love Ariel Sharon, 61 min.

1994      The Reconstruction (the Danny Katz murder case) , 50 min.

1989      Deportation, 11 min.

CHAIR OF ARTISTIC STUDIES. 20th/21st CENTURIES

IVAM-UV-UPV (Institut Valencià d’Art Modern-Universitat de València-Universitat Politècnica de València-Universidad Miguel Hernández)

Directors: Juan Vicente Aliaga / Vicente Sánchez-Biosca

The life in images of contemporary culture outruns the (material and immaterial) traditional spaces in which they were entrapped in the past, even the recent past. Their genres and registers, their ambits of circulation, their ceaseless migrations give the impression of offering a previously unknown experience of the real at the same time as, in an apparent paradox, they display a not in the least feigned technological pride.

Nevertheless, however much studies of the History of Art, Fine Arts, Journalism and Audiovisual Communication have attempted to adapt to the demands of this state of affairs, the lability of the borders between creation and reflection, technology and art, the media and the collective imaginary, among others, requires more ductile ambits of reflection and debate than those to be found in university studies and traditional research. On the other hand, unlike classical philology, palaeography, the exegesis of written texts and the image still presents an imbalance between its (emotional, conceptual, political, memory-based) impact and the instruments provided to analyse it.

The aim of Cátedra Estudios Artísticos, arising from the collaboration between the University of Valencia, the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the IVAM, will consist in encouraging this reflection about the life of images both in the world of art and in social life, including imaginary. It will do so broadmindedly, avoiding academic, artistic or technological restrictions, but, nevertheless, thriving on and taking advantage of all the academic, museum-based and institutional aids at its disposal. For that reason, the fact that it is held at the IVAM is propitious because it can enrich its activities with the reflection about exhibitions, installations or lectures, and also the series of projections.