005 Free Radical
Free Radical
Yoram Amir is an anarchist fighting against the establishment, capitalism and the corrupt of Jerusalem armed with a camera and spray paint.
By: Tali Schwartz
Translated by Mike Wooderson
Yoram Amir I met by accident. I heard about him from friends who said I just had to go see his work. I came to his studio and he showed me his pieces, accompanied by explanations on his world view – I was fascinated. About two weeks later, he invited to me to his exhibition opening at ?Rosa? (MW: tr. – a local bar in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Nachlaot). Yoram spun music that night at the bar – his photographs on the wall, some with explanatory texts, All the works have a common denominator, Amir photographs what bothers him in his so dearly beloved Jerusalem, what irritates his eye ‘both esthetically and philosophically. After that evening I knew that I wanted to hear what this guy has to say. I arranged to meet him in Nachlaot for an interview. I got to a little hole in the wall of a space on Nissim Bechar St. that he rented not long ago.
Amir was busy painting when I got there. He said that this space reminds him of something innocent. Something clean from the good days of Jerusalem and that?s why he decided to rent it. After he?s done painting he?ll turn it into a gallery to show his work. We continued on to a coffee shop (MW ? tr. -Y Caf?, Nissim Bechar 11, Nachlaot, Jerusalem) that was covered with Amir?s photos as seen through window grates. “These grates, they are Jerusalem grates,” relates the photographer. “Even though they’re old, no student at Bezalel (MW:tr. – prestigious and sometimes pretentious local art school) is able to arrive at beauty and simplicity like that.” Today, what we see through these traditional grates are the monstrous buildings, digging and chaos of the City. “That’s the reason why I hung these pictures underneath the grates.”
Before we sit, Amir gives me three darts and asks me to aim at the target. The target was a circular-shaped photo of his from a building on Agrippas St. The bottom of the building is old, with arch-shaped windows. The upper part, new, with square windows. ” Try to aim to the upper half of the building? he requests, “It’s what represents esthetic stupidity for me. Take for example the giant wall murals in the shuk (market), on Gerard Behar (Community Center on Bezalel St.) and beside the Clal building. The commonality between all these murals is the illusion. The drawing in the Shuk doesn’t represent our market at all. On Gerard Behar is drawn ?world peace? which is something that we are very far from, and beside the Clal building there are the drawings of the old-time photographs. What they are saying in that drawing is that it?s OK to destroy the beautiful and the real but let’s soften it by way of drawing the old. Aside from that, if you ask me, those murals are opening the way for giant commercial billboards. Those wall murals fit perfectly with the general approach – that the municipality must exploit all the public space – and this is against the esthetics of Jerusalem. The rape of the city, the digs, the accelerated building. It?s the way of the Western world. The establishment has big plans for Jerusalem. Thirty or forty towers that will change us to a kind of little Manhattan beside the Old City surrounded by giant chains of brand names, fast food, America. This mixed building is destroying creativity. That little place that I rented now is part of my protest. I am aiming to create alternative galleries. A kind of open house, something that can protect us from this whole process of Americanization.?
Urban Warfare
Up until a year ago, Yoram lived with his girlfriend on Shmuel HaNagid St., there they managed the “Open House” in a building also known as Churchill House. Talk about the Open House ?The apartment on Shmuel HaNagid was chilled out. I moved there with a girlfriend and we couldn?t believe how cheap it was. We decided to celebrate this by turning the place into a kind of open house. When we started out we would just make a campfire in the garden. Later, we were bringing friends for performances and we screened movies.?
Did you charge money?
“We didn’t charge money for the concerts or the movies. We would make food and sell them at a symbolic price just to cover costs. The peak was when we turned the yard into a second hand store. They threw us out ’cause they thought it was a pile of garbage. And who was it that saw to our getting kicked out? Our neighbours from The Movement for Progressive Judaism. All the voluntary organizations out there, the charities, that it’s very possible that their prime purpose is positive, but they are supported by the establishment, by the stinking capitalist millionaires. Take the Jerusalem Fund for example. They do nice things for Jerusalem, but who finances them? The establishment. What is important in my eyes is esthetics, the connection between secular and religious, our market. All these foundations, with the best of intentions, simply don?t get down to the base of it.?
What is this base in your opinion?
“For a time I was Chairman of the Market Committee. Did you know that in the whole Machane Yehuda market there aren’t normal and clean public bathrooms? That for me is the base that you have to fight for. It may be that in the peripheral communities the activities of the establishment and the foundations are important to the same worker, or rather, slave that gets up every morning for work. But in the center of town, in Nachlaot, there needs to be a different relation. Relating to people themselves. If they relate to people here, to individuals, in that Western way, we might as well say goodbye to Jerusalem. New York is here. Take for example Agrippas St., or the street of Rachmo?s Restaurant, the peddlers there employ themselves. The same capitalist corporate system is pollution to these streets.
From what I hear from you, the anti-globalization, anti-establishment, can I call you an Anarchist?
“By definition, yes” he smiles, “Look, I didn’t study, I didn’t finish high school. English I can’t read at all. Anyway, when a friend of mine introduced me to someone saying about me that this is my anarchist friend”, I opened the dictionary and saw that the definition fit me ” I’m a type of anarchist. But in contrast to the accepted definition, I don’t use violent action against commercial organizations and the establishment. I believe that the bomb that I drop by way of my art is much more lethal. That is, I use my art as a language.”
Did you always think like this?
“No. It’s a process I went through. I was a combat soldier, an idealist. I served in the paratroopers. I was an officer, a captain. I found one day that all the values that nourished me weren?t right and led to my opposing them.?
What did it lead you to oppose?
“I’ll give you an example. I remember that as soldiers we beat up Arabs at Rafiah on a mission of the government, and the next day in Atzmona (this from the time of Yamit), we beat up Jews that we had to remove from there. Does this make sense to you? Today my son went for his first enlistment order to the army. I’m dying to tell him that they’re pulling a fast one on him but I also know that I have to let him make his own choices. I simply don?t believe anymore in defending the homeland. I believe that the meaning of fighting for the homeland is to fight and work in aid of the esthetic spaces, to fight against genetic engineering, that there will be more clean air for us to breathe. The true battle as I see it is between us and capitalism, the corporations. When we were fighting for the homeland they looted us and gained control of the property. Us, they tell we are fighting for the homeland, while at the same time there is a looting of lands, privatizations among them.
Don Graffitti (Quixote) and His Battle Against the Banai Family
At this point, Amir tells me that I must go to the Caf’s bathroom. When I ask why, he responds that there is a surprise there for me. In the tiny bathroom of the coffee shop Yoram has hung his various documentations of Jerusalem graffiti. He explains that the push and desire to create street art is connected all the way to prehistoric times and the wall drawings found in caves. He tempers his protest genre with respecting the environment. “If there is an effort not to destroy, that is, not to spray paint on Jerusalem stone, but only on cement blocks or tin wall siding them I’m for it”, he reasoned.
When did you start to use photography for protest?
“For years I photographed the beautiful. It changed in one day when the Banai family wanted to change the name of Agas (Pear) St. in the market. The same street that Ehud Banai sings about, after the name of the grandfather of the family. It infuriated me. People are busy taking pieces of this city, in eating away at it. They don?t understand that we are guests here for seventy, eighty years and that?s it. We have to take care of this place that is hosting us. From here comes to me the need to document, to be productive artistically that Jerusalem can benefit from it. I?m coming from a place of protest, not of art. I use art as a language so that the mass, he who is not connected to the art world, will get information on what is happening in his city. The camera as I see it is like a tube for force-feeding geese. By way of the camera they also make commercials, news and many things to which I am opposed, but I am trying to change the camera to something positive. A balancing process.
After all this protesting I hear from you, what is the desired situation in your opinion?
“That in Lifta (MW – tr. – abandoned pre-48 Arab village in the valley at the entrance to Jerusalem) they’ll put up a hostel for artists and people of spirituality and not build more neighbourhoods of villas poking you in the eye, that a thousand carriages with horses will roam the streets of town, that police will arrest whoever’s drinking Red Bull and Cola because they’re poison and not the guy who’s taking a puff off a joint. That people will eat potatoes and corn instead of frozen meat and fast food. That there be a law that on every building in town will be a roof of red shingles and that there will also be a limit on the height of buildings. That the culture of consumption be minimized because the Western culture of consumption is ruining the world. Should I continue”?
Do you really believe that this situation is possible?]
“Look, they’ve already called me Don Quixote but yes. I do believe that I can bring about change, influence, each time a little. My activism is done out of love for this city. You can say that my women left me because of this love. They claimed that I love Jerusalem more then I love them.”
The building at the Holyland is the Temple Kalatrava Bridge is the Gate of Victory A digital clock and synthetic grass This is the main spine Mountains disappearing forests shrinking Historic buildings destroyed Long live the tractor, long live the crane There is none other but the dollar Jerusalem is buying blue and white sponsored by Coca-Cola Businesses are collapsing the shopping malls are enjoying The architecture faculty in the Clal Building The architect of the University up on Mt. Scopus He wins the Israel Prize Tens of teachers of visual communications from Tel Aviv Tens of scrapers of the heavens in West Jerusalem Have to plan, to design, to advertise, to market New York is here, Bezalel is there. Collection of seconds.
In order to contact him, go to: yoram-amir.co.il/ einodmilvadollar.com
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