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Happiness is being genderless

DISPLAY / Artist Rona Yefman explores gender freedom in the transformative exhibition The Strongest Girl in the World at the Oslo Art Association.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The Strongest Girl in the World
Artist: Rona Yefman
Oslo Art Association
24. May – 6. October 2019

Israeli artist Rona Yefman (b. 1972) presents two iconic series exploring the theme of identity in The Strongest Girl in the World at the Oslo Art Association: "Let it Bleed" (1996 – 2010) with her brother and artist Gil Yefman (b. 1979) and "Pippi L. – The Strongest Girl in the World!" (2006 – 2009) with the Danish sound and performance artist Tanja Schlander (f. 1974). The series are originally isolated, but here they are connected. The exhibition contains photographs, videos and installations from a long-standing collaboration where they have shaped a radical character that plays with the boundaries between reality and fiction.

transsexualism

The exhibition spans three rooms and has a transformative structure that I experience as a metamorphosis. The first and second rooms contain works from the "Let it Bleed" series, in which Yefman documents his brother Gil in the period 1996 – 2010; his transformation from man to woman, and later her transformation into a life without gender definitions in "Pippi L. – The Strongest Girl in the World!".

The Yefman siblings grew up in the Israel conflict zone in the 90 century and isolate the Yefman siblings in their self-created dream world, reminiscent of Jean Cocteaus's (1889 – 1963) famous novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929), about the loving and toxic sibling duo Elisabeth and Paul.

"Let it Bleed" is experienced as intimate, playful, naive, warm, dark and sore at the same time. It reminds me of a close sibling who plays dress-up when alone at home, but here with a soreness at the bottom. Rona and Gil explore gender freedom, a life outside the norms and what it means to be born in the wrong body.

They kind of make fun of me, while also emphasizing the message that gender is fluid.

As I see the photographs of the siblings hanging on the walls, I am filled with a kind of uncertainty. It's as if their insecurity is reflected on me. In the work "The Garden of Eve" (2002) I am confused by seeing tits and penis on the same body. Gil's body looks chaotic: the narrow feminine face, the small tits, the slim body and the penis. It doesn't fit together. "If he hadn't had that penis, he'd look like a woman," I think annoyed; maybe he thinks the same thing himself?

Sometimes I can't separate them from each other. At those moments, I feel like they are having some kind of sex with me, while also emphasizing the message that gender is fluid. "Let it Bleed" strikes me as an anarchic manifesto that transcends both boundaries and cultural and family norms, suppressing the individual's freedom of self-definition, emphasizing the gap between who we are and who we want to be. This is particularly evident in the work "Smiley Curtain" (2019) with the words: "They may talk to you about individual freedom, but if they see a free individual, it's going to scare 'em", while Gil waters a flower plant.

gender Resolved

In the series "Pippi L.– The Strongest Girl in the World!", Which begins in the second room, including the portrait "Blonde" (1999, printed 2010) of Gil with a blonde wig, Yefman portrays Astrid Lindgren's classic child hero Pippi Long stocking like his rebellious alter ego with socially subversive ideas, in the Danish sound and performance artist Tanja Schlander's figure. The exhibition has its catharsis in the other room, where Rona and Gil and their gender fluidity are transformed into the heroine, ideal and the strongest woman in the world – Pippi.

We are moving from the dystopian gender exploration phase to the utopian and genderless world of androgynous, independent, boundless, happy, strong and liberated Pippi – who can do it all! In the projected video "Pippi L. Abu Dis," Schlander, like Pippi, attempts to move the massive concrete wall that separates Israel from the West Bank.

Rona and Gil explore gender freedom, a life outside the norms and what it means to be born in the wrong body.

Pippi smiles in every single work, and I do not see the same uncertainty here as I saw in Rona and Gil's eyes in the first two rooms. The neon pink graffiti "I love my life" (2008) in the third room further reinforces and confirms Pippi's confidence – happiness is being genderless in a life without gender definitions.

Pinar Ciftci
Pinar Ciftci
Ciftci is a journalist and actor.

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