Gil & Moti — Available for you — Eric Dupont Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: July 11 → September 18, 2013

In the action-installation Available for You that has been developed since 2008, the Israeli-Dutch artist duo Gil & Moti offers their free services to Arab inhabitants and documents their encounters in diary entries, photos and videos. They take form as public actions, installations, texts, drawings, video material and photos which, together tell the story of a journey in the cities: Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Stockholm. As people are the protagonists of the project and immigration is a central topic of every European metropolis, another characteristic of Available for You is its extensibility.

It is an investigation that initially appears innocent and generous yet raises issues of the complexity of coexistence in an intelligent and stratified manner. It is an obvious further development of projects undertaken by Gil & Moti since 2002, in which as Israelis, reached out to Arabs with a gesture of mutual understanding and reconciliation. At the same time, they raise themes from an artistic perspective of global significance such as: sociability, integration and exclusion. Bordering public and private domains and of art institutions and the streets, they have created their project as a fascinating vision of an artistic and humanitarian practice in a changing world beset by conflict.

Available for you will take form as an installation presenting documentation from past phases of the project next to new experiences from Paris. A market inspires the installation in its form, idea and atmosphere. It is the heart of a neighborhood, a dynamic environment, a center of communication. The exhibition will consist of market-stalls made from wooden slabs to create small and intimate viewing spaces presenting videos and life-size prints. The viewer will access an insight into the daily lives, culture and concerns of Arabs.

The power of Available for You lies in the casual happenings of daily life. Through simple actions based on tolerance and openness far from Israel and Palestine, the relationship between the Arabs and the Jews take on another meaning. By placing personal experiences above collective assumptions, this project poses the question of what it means to form a community, who is included in it and which opinions play a central role in it.

During the exhibition, Gil & Moti will create a new chapter of the project in collaboration with Arabs living in Paris. With the help of simple flyers promoting their free services, they will meet with local Arabs in the area of Barbès-Rochechouart, which could lead to a chain of activities that would be constantly documented, visualized and added to the show.