Aïm Deuelle Luski: The 21st Year to the Demise of Hilmi Shusha

Aïm Deuelle Luski: The 21st Year to the Demise of Hilmi Shusha

The artist Aïm Deuelle Luski focuses his work The 21st Year to the Demise of Hilmi Shusha (2017) on a specific political event that occurred during the First Intifada. The two works present a reality in which the endless cycle of disaster, threat and terror produces a contemporary form of indifference and alienation. French philosopher Jacques Derrida describes this as a process of disconnection from the suffering of others. The suffering becomes transparent and denied, in a process of formative and defensive violence exercised by the state’s institutions.

Luski’s project comprises 51 photographs taken from a book The Silver Platter edited by the artist together with researcher and curator Ariella Azoulay in 1997. The book's opening page contained a photograph of an artwork by Michal Na’aman, dedicated to the same event. The work, also titled The Silver Platter, can be found at the entrance to Luski’s installation. It approaches the event by criticizing the national, almost-mythical status of Nathan Alterman’s famous poem of the same name. According to the artist, "working with silver drippings over masking tape tied the phrase "silver platter" to the story of Hilmi Shusha [...] who, according to the verdict, died when he fell on a rock and no guilty party was identified. For me, Hilmi was an obvious candidate for the persona, the metaphor of becoming the foundation for the creation of another country."