Performances

On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) II - The Guardians of the Door (June 22 2017 - January 2018)







During his long-term project On Friendship / (Collateral Damage) in which he collaborates with Metropool International Art Projects / Studio Meritis MaKOM (Linda Bouws), the main question is how western art and culture are presented and why. In Part 1 (2015) Semah searches for the specific Jewish implications in Kazimir Malevich's (The Black Square) and Barnett Newman's work, and also critically researches the claim by a growing group of people that refer to the Jewish-Christian origin of European culture. Through his lawyer Bob Vink, Semah makes contact with Beatrix Ruf, director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and asks her to account for the 'empty page' in art history on behalf of the art world.

Performance tijdens de opening van Joseph Semah; Tracing Martin Heidegger's hut and Paul Celan's clouds. (5 nov - 31 december 2011)

 

The conversation which did not take place

Goethe-Institut, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Art performance given by Joseph Semah with the help of Sigal Weissbein-Rozman, Auke van der Berg and Jom Semah.

The art performance is based on a poem written by Paul Celan entitled "Death Fugue", the action coincided with the opening of Joseph Semah`s exhibition at Goethe-Institut, Rotterdam, in the presence of the ambassador of Israel and the ambassador of Germany to the Netherlands.

After Paul Celan, Tango and Fugue

72 Privileges [.....]: 'It is precisely this balance between exile and the emotion of the privileged which forms the unique originality of our Breathing in Reverse. As will be clear already, there is no past or future in Exile, only an immediate present'.

 Joseph Semah/Read Full Text

Back to back imam, priest and visual artist Joseph Semah reading from the Koran, the New Testament and the Torah. At the opening of the project 'Next Year in Jerusalem' Germany, April 1st, 2007

http://youtu.be/NY8Nt9RSbyY - only on YouTube



  Download book: Read Full Text (PDF).

On 4 May 2010, Commemoration Day, we witnessed the transformation of commemorating to celebrating Liberation Day in a very special performance by Joseph Semah. One of the oldest observatories in Western Europe is located on top of Felix Meritis, above the roofs of Amsterdam.

Joseph Semah "Breathing in Reverse" 2008