If You Will It, It Is Not a Dream / Wenn ihr wollt, ist es kein Traum, 2013
2013
The catalogue was published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Yael Bartana. Wenn Ihr wollt, ist es kein Traum' at the Secession in Vienna, Austria.
Bartana addresses the spirits of two pioneers, Sigmund Freud and Theodor Herzl, who, in different approaches, sought to bring redemption to the individual and to the collective – and whom she declares the spiritual gods of the 'Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland' (JRMiP), which she founded in 2007.
The publication includes the protocols of the congress of the JRMiP, as well as images from the congress and from the installation at the Secession.
- Design: Enver Hadzijaj
- Editing: Jeanette Pacher, Yael Bartana, Tina Lipsky
- Texts: Juli Carson, Andras Palffy
- Language editing: Joachim Bartholomae mit, Volker Oldenburg
- Copies: 20
- Pages: 152
- Type of binding: Hardcover
- Languages: English, German
- Dimensions (cm): 6.5 x 8.75 inches
- Reproductions: Tal Adler, Yael Bartana, Austrian Archives, Marcin Kalinski, Oliver Ottenschlager, Rabinovich, Magda Wunsche and Samsel
- Type of printing: N/A
- Publication: Secession Redaktion
- Place of publication: Berlin
- Supported by: Board of the Association of Visual Artists Secession
- Book photography: Yair Meyuhas & Shiraz Grinbaum
- ISBN: 9783957630711
Yael Bartana (born in 1970 in Kfar Yehezkel) is one of Israel’s most prominent artists working on the international stage. She lives and works between Berlin, Amsterdam, and Tel Aviv. Her multidisciplinary practice spans films, installations, photographs, performances, and public monuments; through these formats, she explores issues of national identity, trauma, displacement, power structures, and collective rituals, often employing ceremonial aesthetics and forms of communal remembrance. Bartana studied photography at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (1992–1996), continued with an MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and later joined the postgraduate art program at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Her works have been exhibited in major museums and biennials in New York, Warsaw, Eindhoven, Sweden, Denmark, London, and in the biennials of Prague, Istanbul, and Venice. In 2011, she represented Poland at the Venice Biennale with the trilogy “…And Europe Will Be Stunned”, which received wide acclaim. In 2024 she was selected to represent Germany at the 60th Venice Biennale. She is the recipient of numerous art awards in Israel and abroad, including the Bezalel Honorary Award (2021), the Dazibao Prize (2009), and the Artes Mundi Prize (2010).
