Meir Gal

Click here for sellected works
Biographical Notes
1956 Born in Israel
1990 - 1993 MA, New York University, New York.
1987 - 1990 BA, City University of New York.
1982 - 1984 Hadassa College, Jerusalem.
Since 1997 Adjunct professor, City College of New York.
1989-90 Adjunct professor, City College of Ne= York.
One-man Exhibitions
2002 - Noga Art Gallery, Tel Aviv.
1997 - Saalbau Rhypark, Basel, Switserland.
1995 - Ami Steinitz Fine Arts, Tel Aviv, Israel.
1995 - Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel aviv, Israel.
1994 - Limbus Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Group Exhibitions
2000 - Ami Steinitz Fine Arts, Tel Aviv.
1999 - The Puffin Foundation, NJ. 1998 Faculty Exhibition, CCNY, City University of New York.
1999 - Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.
1999 - Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.
1999 - Nexus Comtemporary Art Center, Atlanta.
1999 - Haifa Museum of Art, Israel.
1997 - Tel Aviv Museum of Art= Israel.
1997 - Grey Art Gallery, New York.
1997 - Faculty Exhibition, CCNY, City University of New York.
1997 - Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland.
1997 - Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, California.
1997 - Bass Musaum of Art, Miami, Florida.
1997 - The Korean Cultural Center, New York.
1997 - The Jerusalem Theater, Israel.
1996 - Ein Harod Museum of Art, Israel.
1996 - Noga Art Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
1996 - Arad Musaum of Art, Israel.
1996 - Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel.
1996 - "The Outdoors Museum", Israel.
1995 - ³The Autumn Salon², Tel Aviv, Israel.
1995 - Gordon Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
1994 - Ein Harod, Museum of Art, Israel.
1994 - Tel Chai, Museum of Art, Israel.
1994 - Museum of Israeli Art, Ramat Gan, Israel.
1993 - 494 Gallery, New York.
1993 - Limbus Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
1992 - House of Artists, Jerusalem, Israel.
1992 - El Bohio, Art Center, New York.
1992 - Eye Gallery, San Francisco, California.
1992 - Taiwan Museum Of Fine Art, Taiwan.
1992 - Museum of Art, Taipei.
1992 - Kaoshsiueg Cultural Center, Kaoshsiung, Taiwan.
1989 - Downey Museum of Art, Los An=eles, California.
1988 - Hastings On Hudson, New York.
1984 - House of Artists, Jerusalem, Israel.
About Gal's Work
"The production of visual culture entails the liquidation of art as we have known it"Susan Buck-Morss The aim of this project is to challenge the existence and function of museums, galleries, and art institutions. Museum are perceived by the public as a place where artworks from different periods and places is experienced but what is neglected is an understanding that museum are, in fact, a place where history is written and rewritten while obscuring the sociopolitical and economical contexts within which art is made. It is true that the viewers are exposed to art that otherwise they would not have the opportunity to experience. However, it must be also acknowledged, that this education comes at a cost to the viewers, with numerous and invisible side effects, the adverse results of which could only be seen after many years, if at all.
Why do people go to museums? What actually takes place when people interact with art? Is it simply because they want to enjoy art or is it a way to reassert their identity as a cultured minority? If museums challenged people's perception of themselves instead of supplying the material with which they construct their cultural identity, would they continue going? What happens to a person's personal history inside a museum? When the public visits a museum they are in fact paying for their own re-education that is executed under the guise of innocent, neutral, and enlightening cultural activity. In other words, the viewers place themselves in the hands of a few specialized experts who Berger defines as "clerks of the nostalgia of a ruling class in decline". The museum then is one more location that is utilized by the ruling minority to preserve its own taste, exercise power once again on the public, and set the criteria by which art is judged. When the public internalizes the content of the museum they actively and unknowingly participate in the erasure of their own personal history. A few years of art education in schools, including visits to museums and guided tours, inevitably result in a passive viewer whose own history of experience and taste is minimized, ignored, and effectively erased. How ironic it is that viewers, who work hard for their living, internalize the history of taste of those who employ them, those who exploit them, those who dominate the world of business, those who manage museums, those who own the art that hangs on the walls. This is one of the reasons John Berger suggests to replace museums with the personal boards we all have in our bedrooms and kitchens on which we hang postcards, letters, photos, newspaper clippings, personal notes, etc. According to Berger "all the images (and notes) on the board belong to the same language and all are more or less equal within it, because they have been chosen in a highly personal way to express the experience of the room's inhabitant."
In Museum, managers of Consciousness Hans Haacke refers to the art world as the "consciousness industry." With two words Haacke removes all the "romantic and often misleading mythical notions about the production, distribution, and consumption of art." Haacke further argues that "the channeling of consciousness is pervasive not only under dictatorships but also in liberal societies" in which art is presented and perceived as a liberating activity. Haacke finally concludes that "in countries where artists are openly compelled to serve prescribed policies", art is ambiguously regarded as an alternative to main stream culture, and falsely associated with radicalism and resistance.
Why are museums so important? Who benefit the most from how museums operate? Is it the public? Museums and cultural institutions play a crucial role in shaping how the public constructs an image of itself and what function it should have in managing the state. When cultural institutions reduce the public to timid receptors of nostalgia and myths they deprive it from understanding its active historical role. Nothing is more effective in maintaining power where it is.