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LIGA TEREZÍN GUY RAZ
Exhibition Overview The art exhibition LIGA TEREZIN focuses on the link between past and future memory. It is a reconstructionproject of the artist and curator Guy Raz of football league which was active in Theresienstadt ghetto during three years (1942-1944). The role of an artist is to participate in the current relay race aimed at passing the memory baton from the past to the future in order to prevent the oblivion. The exhibition’s point of origin is love for the game of soccer taking place all over the Globe as a parallel to the contemporary world of violence and wars, especially, the World War II and the Holocaust of the European Jewry. In our world, LIGA TEREZIN exemplifies an attempt to play on the game of everyday life despite the death looming on the morrow. The exhibition space is divided in two : in the front part the contemporary photos of Terezin football field is presented and the Uniforms of Terezin Soccer Club of today. On the opposite side a memory wall is erected to represent all the teams that played in the ghetto by re-printing of the players / prisoners names on the background of the photograph of the Ohre River, where the ashes of cremated corpses were thrown down. The other space designed as a “dressing room” shows drawn, photographed, and written testimonies of the League activities. On the dressing room’s wall, on two video screens visitors are able to view the last match played in the ghetto and shot by the Germans along with the interview with Peter Erben, one of the League’s founders and one of the last ghetto survivors. The work is a part of the combined project in cooperation with Beit-Terezin, Giv'at Haim Ihud.
GUY RAZ LIGA TEREZÍN In September 2006, I traveled to Prague. Visiting the Jewish Quarter and Kafka’s grave, I decided to go to the Theresienstadt ghetto. A local bus brought me to the Terezín Fortress compound. During WWII, the larger fortress served as the Theresienstadt ghetto and the smaller one as a prison. After photographing the major parts of the ghetto and visiting the local museum, I decided to see what lay beyond the walls. The first thing I saw was a football pitch – the home turf of Sokol Terezín, the local amateur team.
GUY RAZ LIGA TEREZÍN The grounds reminded me of the football field in the kibbutz where I played as a child. In the corner of the stadium, inside a steam-filled shack, my eye caught two old women washing the local football team's uniforms: shirts, pants, socks. When I approached the clothes drying on a rope tied to one of the ghetto's walls, I realized that the red of the shirts was the same color as that of my childhood team, Hapoel Geva. First, asking for permission, I shot 12 frames. At that moment, I already knew that I had something symbolizing the Holocaust in a different way. It had all the components: the ghetto wall, red shirts with Terezín on them, the logo of the German sports-equipment company Adidas, and the sequence of numbers on the football shirts. Then, the negatives lay forgotten on my shelf for two years .
GUY RAZ LIGA TEREZÍN About eight months ago, as part of preparing for a new exhibition I knew would deal with football, I approached the Beit Terezín, located at the Givat Haim Ihud kibbutz. Only then did I discover that a football league was active in the Theresienstadt ghetto during 1942-1944. The subject matter of the exhibition shape-shifted into a project reconstructing the history of the Terezín League. I began to research the subject in order to understand whether it would be possible to connect the present to the past.
GUY RAZ LIGA TEREZÍN Only Jewish prisoners played in the ghetto's football league. There were teams with names such as Gibor, Sparta, Bohemia and Prague, reflecting the sports clubs and Jewish communities that the prisoners came from, but most groups in the league were named after their working specialty in the ghetto: Division of Transportation, Youth Bureau, Clothing Warehouse, Work Center, The Cooks, The Butchers, The Electricians, The Gardeners, Medical Clinic, and others. Apart from the main league, there were another three: an amateur, children’s and a youth league. The ghetto’s central stadium was in the inner courtyard of the Dresden Barracks camp, where the games were held on Sunday afternoons. These seven-player teams were supported by thousands of the ghetto’s prisoners. Children and adolescents documented the matches and their atmosphere in the ghetto’s newspapers, analyzing made and missed goals, team formations, results and game tables. One of the league’s last games was filmed, becoming part of a Nazi propaganda film about life in the ghetto. The team's make-up changed over the years – and sometimes from game to game – as entire line-ups of players would be sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
GUY RAZ LIGA TEREZÍN A week ago, I visited the Maccabi Tel Aviv football club, where, as a gift, I received a book documenting 100 years of the club’s existence. While browsing it, the following paragraph caught my eye: "... In 1942, as a sign of solidarity with the Jews of Europe, which were forced to wear the yellow star, the club’s management decided to change the color of the shirts worn by the club’s players from blue on white to blue on yellow..." To this day, those are the colors of Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C. Guy Raz,April 2009
THE LAST GAME “The Last Game”– a segment from Kurt Gerron’s Nazi-commissioned propaganda film Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement (1944), loop 3,5 min
INTERVIEWS WITH THE SUVIVORS Guy Raz, 3 Interviews with Tersienshtadt Survives. Peter Erben, Milan Chervinka Yakov Tzur, loop 15 min, 2008-2009
INTERVIEW WITH PETER ERBEN Peter Erben, one of the League’s founders and one of the last ghetto survivors. 1944 2008
GUY RAZ BIOGRAPHY Born in Israel, 1964 Studies: 1990-1993 - Photography,”Camera Obscura”, School of Art, Tel-Aviv // 1997-1998 - Art, Post- Graduate program, ”Bezalel”, Art Academy, Jerusalem. (B.F.A.) // 2000-2004 - Art, “Hebrew University”, Jerusalem. (M.A.). Selected one-man exhibitions: 2009 - "LIGA _TEREZIN", N&N Aman gallery, Tel Aviv 2007 - “2 Seconds”, (“Post-Bus”), Nelly Aman gallery, Tel Aviv. 2005 - “Mizmor”, (“The Warrior Muse”), Nelly Aman gallery, Tel Aviv. 2002 - “Lifeguard Towers”, Nelly Aman gallery, Tel Aviv. 2000 - “On The way to Efrat”, Nelly Aman gallery, Tel Aviv. 1999 - “Gravedigger”, Art gallery, School of Art “Hamidrasha”, Beit Berl. 1998 - “Storage”, (r.g.b.), 48 Studio, Bezalel 1, Jerusalem. 1996 - “City Square”, Hakibbutz gallery, Tel-Aviv. 1995 - “Wadi Sider”, Hakibbutz gallery, Tel-Aviv. 1994 - “Disc”, Photography gallery, School of Art “Hamidrasha”, Ramat Hasharon. 1994 - “Menmonikos”, Museum of Art, Ein Harod. 1994 - “Seven Years”, Borochov gallery, Tel-Aviv. Selected group exhibitions: 2008 - “AS IS”- Contemporary Art from Israel, "Il Vittoriano", Rome. 2008 - “Art of the state - Contemporary Photography and Video Art from Israel”, The J M, Amsterdam. 2007 - "Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video”, The Jewish Museum, New York / Berlin. 2006 - “2 seconds”, “disruption”, Petach-Tikva museum of art. 2005 - “We Born In Dresden”, “Means of Art”, Dresden, Germany. 2005 - “Lifeguard Towers” - detail, “City Photographic”, Biennale of Photography, Guangzhou, China. 2004 - “Current Visions: Inside Israel”, Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York. 2004 - “The way to Efrat” - detail, “A Point of View”, Tel Aviv Museum. 2004 - “Lifeguard Towers” - detail, “Water Water Everywhere”, Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York. 2004 - “Mediterranean: a place between reality & utopia", The Photographers' Gallery, London. 2003 - “Lifeguard Towers” - detail, “The Promise, The Land”, O.K. Center, Linz, Austria. 2001 - “The way to Efrat” - detail, “Re-Thinking”, ifa-Galerie, Bonn, Stuttgart, Berlin. 2000 - “Photography in Israel: A Changing View”, Fotofest 2000, Margolis Gallery, Huston, Texas. 2000 - “The way to Efrat” - detail, the 7th Biennale, Havana, Cuba. 1998 - “Condition Report”, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 1998 - “To the East - Orientalism in the Arts in Israel”, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 1998 - “Rachel Tomb”, “To Holy Places in Israel”, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 1998 - “Gored by a bull”, “Sabbath in the Kibbutz”, Uri & Rami Museum, Ashdot -Yaakov. 1997 - “City Gate”, “Map Reference”, Camera Obscura gallery, Tel-Aviv / Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem. 1996 - “Dothan Valley”, “4 Projects”, Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 1994 - “Library”, “Against the Mountain”, Arts Center, Givat Haviva.
GUY RAZ BIOGRAPHY One-man Projects: 2000 - “Road-Blocks”, (1930-1967), “HA’ARETZ”, Daily Newspaper. 1997 - “Road-Blocks”, (1992-1997), “HA’ARETZ”, Daily Newspaper. 1995 - “Road-Blocks”, (1992-1995), “STUDIO”, Art Magazine. Selected Curated exhibitions: 2008 - “Zoltan Kluger – Chief Photographer”, 1933 - 1958, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv. (Catalogue) 2008 - “Zakirat al-Makan" [Memories of a Place] the Photographic History of Wadi Ara, 1903-2008. 2007 - “Maxim Salomon”, 1947-1957, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv. (Catalogue) 2006 - “Photo Sonia”, 1922-1948, Sonia Kolodny, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv. (Catalogue) 2005 - “Warriors”, Shay Aloni - current serial of Warriors (1920-1948), Museum of Art, Ein Harod. 2005 - “Maccabiot on The Boulevard”, homage to the first maccabiot – 1932, 1935. Chen blvd. , Tel Aviv. 2005 - “Orphan Girls”, 1902-1934, Tsadok Bassan, Artists House, Jerusalem / Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv. (Catalogue) 2004 - “Framed Landscape”, (1867-2002), The Art Gallery, University of Haifa. (Catalogue) 2003 -“Avraham Soskin - A Retrospective” Photographs, 1905-1945, Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv. (Catalogue) 2002 - “Lebanon, 20 years”, Aurbach, Yedaya, Kantor, Shirman, Heker, Bar-Am, Hakibbutz gallery, Tel-Aviv. 2001 - “Against The Mountain”, the history of kibbutz Geva, from Soskin to Lustig, (1921-2001), kibbutz Geva. 2000 - “Polaroid’s”, Michael Rorberger, reconstruction from the 70th, Limbos gallery, Tel Aviv. 1999 - “Eyes Which Have Seen Soskin”, Avraham Soskin, (1905-1930) Artists House, Tel Aviv. (Catalogue) 1995 - “I Photograph History”, Eliahu Cohen, (1930-1960), Uri & Rami Museum, Ashdot - Yaakov. (Catalogue) Editor: 2000 - Guest Editor, “STUDIO” - Art Magazine, no’ 113, “On History Of Local Photography”. 2001 - Guest Editor, “STUDIO” - Art Magazine, no’ 124, “On History Of Local Photography” no II. 2003 - The Album “Photographers of Palestine-Eretz Israel / Israel” (1855-2000). 2008 - The Album “Warrior’s”, Warrior’s 1920- 1949, photographs 2000- 2005, photographer: Shai Aloni. Awards: 2007 - Prize for Art Encouragement, Ministry of Science & Arts. 2000 - Prize for Adult Israeli Artist, Ministry of Science & Arts. 1995 - Prize for Young Israeli Artist, Ministry of Science & Arts. Lectures in the world: 2004 – The Israeli academic center, Cairo, Egypt. 2004 – The photographers’ gallery, London, England 2005 – Los Andos University, Bogota, Colombia. 2005 – ACPR symposium, Budapest, Hungary. 2007 – Jewish Museum, Amsterdam, Holland. 2008 – Harvard University, Boston, USA.
N&N Aman Gallery www.amangallery.co.il Nelly Aman Gallery opened its doors to the public in 1974 .In its early years, the Gallery exhibited the work of artists who, over time, became widely recognized. Among them are: David Reeb, Henry Shlezniak, Yair Garbuz, Michael Gitlin, Pamela Levi, Asad Azi, and Michael Drucks. During the last 20 years, the Gallery concentrated on showing young emerging artists working in various media, including painting, photography, installations, video and digital art. Artists such as Hila Lu Lu Lin, Reut Ferster, Guy Raz, Yael Kanarek & Erez Golan show promise of leading the next generation of Israeli artists. In 2007, when Natalie Nesher Aman joined the Gallery, bringing with her a decade of invaluable experience at Sotheby’s Israel, its name changed to N&N Gallery. Today, the Gallery is a year-round exhibition space, for both established artists, and new promising names in Israeli art: Anisa Ashkar, Tzipi Zohar, Isaak Kolb and Yoav Weiss. Furthermore. the Gallery now focuses on initiating artistic projects and promoting them at galleries and museums world wide. N&N Aman Gallery is located at 26 Gordon Street, Tel Aviv.
