Johnny Keren (The Great Wizard of No Man’s Land)

2010, Installation and performance, Bezalel Graduate Show, Jerusalem

Through a passageway that echoes an entrance to a (queer) club or a sleeve of an airplane, the viewer could visit a space filled with relics of the mind. While filled with the “noise” of sounds, images, and objects of different mediums (e.g paintings, drawings, ready-made toys, etc.), a sense of quietude, safety or tranquility was present. At the center there was a sculpture stage “Monument for the 3rd Gender”, next to it, the jukebox was waiting for you to insert a coin, pick a tune from a repertoire of oldies songs and enjoy a private show. Nostalgia for an unknown past mixed with role play combined to reveal an out of time and place experience, somewhat “off” in its identity, perhaps inevitably melancholic. The performance took place every other day throughout the month of the Bezalel Art Academy Graduate Show.