Not Your Scapegoat/Canary
“Not Your Scapegoat” and “Not Your Canary” are artworks by BARD (2024, block print and gold leaf on paper).
These prints push back against the use of Israel as a theoretical talking point or political tool, and the outside narratives that define and demonize it. Israel should not be the world’s scapegoat for evil; nor should it need to constantly be the proverbial “canary in the coal mine”, warning us of evil’s steady march. Israel is a real country, full of real people.
These works refocus on those who live in the land of Eretz Yisrael, through the use of two unofficial symbols of the country: the Eurasian Hoopoe and the Mountain Gazelle. While Israel represents different things to many individuals, this ultimately cannot overshadow the fact that it is a multicultural land full of diverse people, flora, and fauna. Their existence is infinitely too valuable for it to be reduced and demeaned to fodder for the world’s ideological battleground.
What's Your Reaction?
What strikes me the most about your work beyond the description and concepts you have generously provided us, is the fact that you have used the element of gold in the representation of this idea. A narrative in the negative, such as ‘that which Israel is not’, brushed over with gold leaf, a symbol of fertility and growth, implies that the image seeks to define what Israel is, implicitly and as a given, as opposed to merely in refutation.