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Yael Bartana, The Undertaker, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021
Photography: Joseph Hu, 2021.
Yael Bartana, The Undertaker, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021
Photography: Joseph Hu, 2021.
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Yael Bartana - Redemption Now, Jüdisches Museum Berlin, 2021
Yael Bartana - Redemption Now, Jüdisches Museum Berlin, 2021
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Witch Hunt, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2021-2022
Witch Hunt, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2021-2022
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Yael Bartana, The Undertaker, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021
Photography: Joseph Hu, 2021.
Yael Bartana, The Undertaker, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021
Photography: Joseph Hu, 2021.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Yael Bartana, The Undertaker, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021
Photography: Joseph Hu, 2021.
Yael Bartana, The Undertaker, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2021
Photography: Joseph Hu, 2021.
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Yael Bartana, The Undertaker (production photo), 2019, single channel 2k video, Color, sound. Duration: 13'
Yael Bartana, The Undertaker (production photo), 2019, single channel 2k video, Color, sound. Duration: 13'
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Yael Bartana - Redemption Now, Jüdisches Museum Berlin, 2021-2022
Yael Bartana - Redemption Now, Jüdisches Museum Berlin, 2021-2022
Yael Bartana
The Undertaker, 2019
One channel video and sound installation
Duration: 13 min
Duration: 13 min
Edition of 6 + 2 AP
B-YBARTANA-.19-0002
Further images
Yael Bartana is interested in questions of group dynamics and leadership. In politics as in messianism, faith is often placed in one person’s ability to guide their followers to a...
Yael Bartana is interested in questions of group dynamics and leadership. In politics as in messianism, faith is often placed in one person’s ability to guide their followers to a better future. The Undertaker portrays an enigmatic leader guiding a group of armed followers on a ceremonial march. Bearing firearms from various historical contexts and accompanied by people dressed in uniforms from the American Revolution, the group strides down the streets of Philadelphia, the birthplace of US democracy. The procession concludes at Laurel Hill Cemetery, where the group buries its weapons in the tradition of some North American indigenous peoples. The participants’ choreography draws on a 1953 composition by Noa Eshkol (1924–2007). Rather than a memorial to the dead, Bartana’s symbolic burial is a monument for the living, an invitation to consider our bodies as both carriers of trauma as well as vehicles for hope and resistance.
Exhibitions
'Noa Eshkol, 1924-2007. Dance and Compositions', MAHJ, Paris 2026'Unknown Landscapes', Garage Rotterdam, 2025
'Noa Eshkol, No Time to Dance', Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin, 2024
Yael Bartana: The Undertaker', The Contemporary Dayton, Dayton, 2023
'Yael Bartana', Norrköpings Konstmuseum, Norrköping, 2022
'Yael Bartana: Redemption Now', Jewish Museum, Berlin, 2021
'Witch Hunt', Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA, 2021
'Yael Bartana / The Undertakers', Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel-Aviv, 2020
'Yael Bartana: The Graveyard', Capitain Petzel, Berlin, 2019