Through January 1, 2011, Julie M. Gallery for Contemporary Art is featuring a unique exhibit by Anat Betzer. Irit Mor provides a preview and some insights as the exhibit hits the middle of its run.
Anat Betzer's new solo exhibition includes a series of portrait drawings. The subjects of these portraits are hunters posing with their conquests, holding their weapons, facing forward with hollow stares. They are adult males in a regressive state, portraying warfare, defining a particular masculinity and, perhaps, dreaming of a different victim – one that is real, one that is human.
Anat Betzer collects the images she uses in her work from the Internet. Drawing requires time and patience, beginning with the searching and locating phase, through the selection and editing phase. This all leads to the final planning and drafting phase, during which the artist expresses their own fascinating interpretation of the original image.
The images in the exhibition reflect smug violence as well as the banality of evil and closed mindedness. Betzer raises questions about morality and pleasure in our daily lives, as well as larger psychological and political scales.
At the heart of the exhibition is a large self-portrait embodying the title “Run Betzer Run,” albeit a duplicitous message: is it a command made by the hunter or the desperate cry of the victim?
