Art in General presents the North American debut of the Mobile Archive, an international collection of over 1000 video artworks assembled by the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon. The Mobile Archive has been traveling the world since its first stop at the Kunstverein in Hamburg in 2007 and includes artists such as Yael Bartana, Guy Ben-Ner, Candice Breitz, Jumana Emil Abboud, Köken Ergun, Mark Lewis, Avi Mograbi, Yoshua Okon, and Ruti Sela.

The exhibition will be presented in multiple formats: visitors will be able to select and watch any video from the archive in Art in General’s Project Space; view specially curated screenings by independent curators Regine Basha, Adina Popescu, and Chen Tamir; as well as attend daily screenings of work by featured artists from the archive.

With to the goal of facilitating research and cultural exchange, much of the archive focuses on issues of identity, nationalism, and militarism. Works in the archive also offer alternative narratives to historical tropes of Israeli society. For example, videos by B’Tselem (The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) present oft unseen documentation from Palestine, while filmmaker Avi Mograbi demands debate about the responsibility of soldiers in the IDF.

In the past few years, the Israeli Center for Digital Art has worked to catalogue and transform its valuable archive into a convenient and dynamic viewing and research library, open to curators, artists, art students and teachers. Starting in Hamburg, the Mobile Archive has moved to a wide range of art institutions, including the WYSPA Institute of Art in Gdansk, Poland; Galerija Nova (of WHW) in Zagreb, Croatia; Skuc Gallery in Ljubljana, Slovenia; the Universita luav di Venezia; Viafarini DOCVA, Milan, and the Newberry Gallery at the Glasgow School of Art.

The archive is conceived of as a continually expanding resource and all of these institutions have contributed new video works to the archive as it tours. Art in General and the guest curators will similarly select and add work from 20 artists— whose work will be new to the archive—before the archive travels to its next venue.

The Mobile Archive exhibition is organized by Art in General in collaboration with guest curator Chen Tamir.

The Mobile Archive exhibition is made possible by Artis – Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, and the Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in New York.