No Condition Is Permanent: More About the Exhibition

Impossible Journey (2002 –2009), a sand installation in the museum’s atrium, and a video documenting the artist’s action of making the work, offers space to reflect on the exhausting nature of being trapped in an infinite labour of hope. Constricted by invisible boundaries, Batniji shovels a pile of sand from one side to another in a continuous loop. This is the first of a series of works that invite the viewer on an exploration of the human condition.

ID Project (1993–2020) documents the artist’s administrative struggle gaining residency in France as a Palestinian, while reflecting on the idea of displacement and the alienation faced by migrant communities in various places in the world. Despite the reality of their existence as citizens, and as active participants in the societies of their host countries, migrants endure tensions unique to their situation, alongside the constant re-emergence of issues around their identity.

Gaza Walls (2001) presents traces of posters from the Second Intifada (2000–2005), an uprising against Israeli oppression. The work shows layers of fading slogans and faces of martyrs, that were once visible in Gaza’s public space. On the one hand, the erasure of features suggests the erasure of their memory – but on the other, this absence conveys an assertive message of recognition despite the passing of time.

This double meaning of absence is also explored by Batniji in Untitled (2001–2004). These silk-screen portraits are made in commemoration of Palestinian martyrs who were killed by Israeli forces during the Second Intifada. The negative image on black, which only becomes visible from certain angles, confronts the fact that the deaths of many remain little spoken of in the media.

In Background Noise (2007) the artist presents an oversized video projection of his own face to reflect on the fatal effect of a mechanized settler colonial war. The work was made in response to a published interview with an Israeli air force pilot who was asked by a journalist to speak about the fear created by the sound of falling bombs, which is part of a psychological war. In the video, Batniji resists blinking, but eventually fails as the continued sound of explosions are heard from his Gaza home.

Inflammable (1997) presents a group of rolled canvases, which have the word ‘INFLAMMABLE’ printed in red on them. The artist created this series after the disappearance of a group of his paintings at Tel-Aviv’s airport while they were in transit from Palestine. The viewer can’t see what is inside, so the message is the artwork rather than the image. The artist turns the loss of his artworks into a statement about their spirit, with the red inscription powerfully evoking the danger of censoring art in war zones.

In Absence (1998) the artwork is not dependent on occupying a space. Its traces of tape and stone govern the representation that validates a truth despite the absence of the subject. Here, Batniji uses a direct reference to art systems that are subject to a state between existence and nonexistence. The disappearance of materials here does not necessarily mean an erasure, but rather, a transitory state that is in-between a beginning and an end.

The photographic series Fathers (2006) explores ideas of loss from a social perspective. Presenting images of cafes, barbershops, butcheries and factories, Batniji shows that what connects these places are the framed photographs of the fathers of the shop owners. The work highlights the way family businesses pass down through the generations even when the main protagonists are absent. Here, all the ‘protagonists’ are male, which adds another layer relating to the patriarchal dimension highlighted by the artist, reflecting the structures of public space and everyday life.

The museum hallway presents Disruption (2015–2017), where the artist printed screenshots of video calls between the artist and his mother and other family members, highlight how the quality of the call fades as the video connection is disrupted. While in, Wallpaper (Abu Ghraib) (2015), he explores the idea of how events can fade into the background and go unnoticed. As he describes in his own words and intention: ‘The viewer has the freedom to look closely at the symbols or simply take no notice of them. In both ways, the work casts light on the measure of importance [that is given]to certain news that is perceived from [different] viewpoints and levels of importance'.

In With Variable Geography (2012) fragility takes another form, as the artist creates a miniature world map using thin wooden toothpicks.

Not Lost (2019-2020) consists of a collection of ‘prelevement’ footprints transferred from sidewalks to paper using the ‘frottage’ process. By fixing this collection of traces left behind by people as they cross the urban space, the artist proposes that every human’s step makes an impact, also exploring the notion of progress and its subsequent impact.

The Sky Over Gaza (2001– 2004) again explores ideas of impermanence, as we see the sky constantly changing. It is also a suggestive image of waiting.

Tabula Ghaza (2005 – 2019) is a diptych of the same gaming table of a worn out top, photographed in Gaza in 2005 and brought by the artist from Palestine in 2014. The work explores the relationship between lasting forms and meanings, standing in conversation with art history and the work of conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth, questioning representation and the functionality of art in our lives.

The photographic series Watchtowers (2008) follows a formal typology approach used by the German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher in their works documenting post-industrial architectures. On a closer look, the viewer discovers the reality of the subject that Batniji is highlighting, and the colonial surveillance still continuing today. In this work, the content is more important than the aesthetics; the photos were shot at Israeli checkpoints and sent to Batniji, as the artist could not travel to Palestine in person.

Suspended Time (2006) is a representation of the artist himself, embodied as an hourglass, and trying to put time on hold, almost as we see him shifting sand in the Impossible Journey. Batniji puts his works in conversation with one another, as he says: ‘I built the connection between Impossible Journey which I made first in 2002 in Berlin, and later this work…as if I were on an impossible journey impersonating the role of an hourglass through the moving sand, where I had to pass through a slim passage.’

Imperfect Lovers (2013) suggests the idea of fragility and the multiple possibilities offered by such a state, by using the Arabic words ‘Thawra/Tharwa’ (revolution/prosperity) with two-opposite meanings in a clock-like shape. The work references Felix Gonzales-Torres’ 1991 work ‘Untitled (Perfect Lovers)’ and Kamal Boulata’s 1978 serigraphy ‘Thawra/Tharwa’. It closes the show by bringing the viewer back to the present, as a reflection on the potential of art and its universal dimensions.