HUDSON VALLEY CENTER for CONTEMPOARAY ART is excited to be hosting this special presentation of Dafna Shalom’s video trilogy titled Yamim Noraim (Fearful Days). Following the screening, guests will be invited to stay for an artist talk and reception. The 30 minute video trilogy Yamim Noraim (Fearful Days) was made as a “time-specific” piece referring to the introspective and prayerful Hebrew month of Elul that ushers in the High Holy Days of Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur. It is a time when Jews reflect upon their relationships toward their fellow man and the divine.
Fearful Days #1 (2006, 3 minutes) depicts two actors adorning themselves in military camouflage. In Fearful Days #2 (2007, 6 ½ minutes), projected on the floor of the space, we see the close-up activity of honeybees, the Queen dominant over the male worker bees as they work and face their near demise. In the most elaborate video, Fearful Days #3 (2010, 15 minutes), we see two figures in a grassy field with stone walls seemingly separating and guarding nothing; remnants of an Ozymandias landscape of power long gone. Located in southern Israel, the field was a British Mandate site where hundreds of stone structures were erected to hide weapons for a possible German attack. In referring to the wider human stage, Yamim Noraim puts us at the intersection of challenges that, although seemingly new to each generation, have always plagued humanity. The work investigates the implications of personal and national beliefs in absolute truth, entitlement, and the desire for power, raising the question of whether our common human hopes and dreams can take us beyond the ‘Fearful Days’.
Dafna Shalom, was born in Israel to Moroccan and Yemeni parents. Her works have been featured at the Haifa Museum of Art (2011), The Petach Tikva Museum (2012), Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo (2012), Indomitable Women at BAC 10.0 – CCCB – Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Barcelona (2009), as well as many other locations. Shalom is based in Tel Aviv and New York City. Yamim Noraim was first shown at the HVCCA as part of Peekskill Project 2006. - See more at: http://www.hvcca.org/current-special-events/#sthash.uCcC6iCT.dpuf