Personal loss is, sadly, something most of us in this country have experienced, and will continue to do so. And, of course, it eventually happens to all of us. Naturally, when one’s parent passes away at a ripe old age it is painful but, at least, it is the natural order of things. C’est la vie.
But when a couple of tiny tots lose their father when they are not old enough to remember him in later years that leaves a void for the rest of their lives.
Michal Shachnai’s father, Oded, was killed in battle during the War of Attrition (1967-70). He was just 25 and Michal was two and a half. Her younger sister, Idit, was less than a year old.
“I don’t remember him at all,” Michal tells me when we meet up at the Petah Tikva Museum of Art where her exhibition, On the Cypress Spear, curated by Anat Gatenio, is currently showing. “It is all from stories and pictures.”
That feeds into the dozens of works in the Petah Tikva spread which are largely of a ready-made ilk, with Shachnai augmenting the extant object with her own artistic and personal twists.
There are also some intriguing video works in there which, like the vast majority of the artifacts reference Shachnai’s personal loss and familial backdrop, but also point to the national sabra ethos of heroism and courage regardless of the circumstances.
This is a moot point that also informs the thinking behind the project. Where does one’s private grief begin and end, and where does the state take over the mourning reins and dictate how those who fall in its defense are to be commemorated? The Shachnai sisters and their mother did not have much of a say in the matter.
In a documentary Michal made around 20 years ago she recalls how she and Idit were the only children on their kibbutz –Yifat – whose father had been killed in battle. “We were the kibbutz orphans,” Shachnai recalled with a wry smile. “We were the queens of Remembrance Day.” There was little left for the Shachnais’ personal domain. “It was as if the state was the father and the kibbutz was the mother, or the other way round – it doesn’t matter. We grew up as part of a collective.”
So there she was, not only bereft of a father whom she could not consciously recall ever having met, she wasn’t even able to devise her own way of expressing her sadness at his absence from her life.
The evocative exhibition header comes from a poem by Israel Prize laureate poet and playwright Natan Alterman called Moon. Shachnai says she chose the poetic source notwithstanding its original setting. “It actually describes a cityscape but there are quite a few lines in the poem I felt are part of my exhibition.” The arboreal reference certainly fits the rustic bill. Cypress trees were traditionally planted alongside agricultural fields to provide a buffer against invasive winds.
The poem opener sets the creative and presentational scene. “’Even an old landscape has a moment of birth’ is how the poem begins,” Shachnai notes. “That is what I do here. I work a lot with old objects that connected to my childhood, and to the ethos on which we grew up – of the sabra, the kibbutz, and commemoration.”
There are any number of referential hooks spread around the collection that instantly conjure up the national zeitgeist of patriotism, Zionism, and the indomitable pioneering spirit, and the incontrovertible fact that total devotion and sacrifice for the country are a given.
ONE ITEM that caught my eye was an accordion, that almost kitsch icon of good old Israeliness, as one’s mind completes the obligatory image of barrel-chested young men and alluring yet tough girls sitting and lying around a campfire enjoying a kumzitz and singing songs of “good old Israel,” Russian style with stirring Hebrew lyrics.
Shachnai also went for oxymoronic pairings, such as a couple of water canteens – that ubiquitous piece of equipment familiar to anyone who has served in the IDF or participated in a yesteryear school trip. In Shachnai’s version two water containers are poised over a barbecue grill – yet another symbol of Israeli machismo – creating an implausible synergy of fire and water.
On the Cypress Spear is full of disparate marriages. The aforesaid archetypal Israeli musical instrument is one of several exhibits that have been encased in a layer of cement, thereby freezing them, as it were, in mid-flight. The accordion is caught with its bellows fully extended, hovering at its apex and just waiting to collapse and produce a sound, however grating it may come out. The show must go on.
The lay of the Zionist land, and the way forward for us here in ideological terms and basic physical survival, shimmer in the exhibition subtext. There is also something of a yin-yang feel to the venture. Works which, at first glimpse, appear to be pointing a critical finger at Shachnai’s childhood societal environment reveal very different undercurrents when examined more deeply.
Shachnai left the kibbutz some years ago but she says the ongoing psychological and existential aftermath of October 7 has brought her back to roost, at least emotionally.
“We are part of the generation that led to the collapse of the kibbutz movement."
"We are the generation who looked for individualism, strove for self-realization. We ran away from the collective. We ran away from anything that symbolized the Zionist ethos. We disparaged things we’d believed in.”
The barbaric attack down South, and its continuing ramifications, have led to a rethink. “It’s a bit of a pendulum thing,” Shachnai muses. “Since the events of October 7, I have looked at the kibbutz system with respect. Kibbutzim have displayed resilience, social robustness.”
She now appreciates the ideals, customs, and traditions that have withstood the test of time, and sociopolitical shifts. “Look at this, for example,” she says, pointing me in the direction of a mixed animation-video work she called Between Seasons.
“This is the wheat harvest ceremony, which takes place on Passover eve. The whole kibbutz goes out to the fields, the men with the scythes and the women and children dance. I got this footage from YouTube, from a video about Kibbutz Ramat Yochanan – near where I live in Tivon. They have been upholding this custom, exactly the same way, for over 70 years.”
Betwixt the quintessentially Israeli elements there are allusions to cultural sentiments from further afield. “You don’t necessarily associate that [harvest] with something Israeli. It is a universal archetypal ritual,” Shachnai suggests before turning to the flipside. “This is about nature and the cyclical nature of life, but the men with the scythes could also be Angel of Death figures. There is always this obverse and reverse balancing act.”
That leads one down the path of ambivalence which, perhaps, is not what most of us are looking for in these uncertain times. But art is there to pose questions, and On the Cypress Spear does that with aplomb.
On the Cypress Spear closes on December 31, 2024. For more information: https://www.petachtikvamuseum.com
