Joseph Sassoon Semah

Joseph Sassoon Semah spends three days in his house of concrete blocks reading from his thirty-year research on the "empty" pages in art history. In a performance program with five performances on October 20, 21 and 22 in the Stedelijk Museum, Joseph Sassoon Semah wants to demonstrate that the museum is also a place where various interpretations and visions on art are substantiated.

The performances coincide with the Friday night program Stedelijk Statements: Joseph Sassoon Semah. This program is the third edition of Stedelijk Statements, a program series in which a scholar, artist, critic, or cultural entrepreneur composes an evening at the museum. The organizer of the program is given the floor to share his or her views on visual art and design. New research and both artistic and academic projects will be presented during an evening program consisting of lectures, debates, performances, and film screenings. In this edition, artist Joseph Sassoon Semah discusses his statement on the lack of attention for Jewish narratives in contemporary art history.

Performance program:

MaKOM: The doubling of the House
October 20, 21, 22 2017, Sat-Sun 11-18 hrs, Stedelijk Museum
With: Jom Semah – the cyclist / Peter Baren – the performer / Baruch Abraham – translator of Semah’s motherlanguage

Reflection on Joseph Beuys: How to explain hare hunting to a dead German artist, with Anastasia Kozlova (violist)
Fri 20 Oct, 21 hrs, Stedelijk Museum

Reflection on Marcel Duchamp: OFaNIM and Bicycle Wheels are Reconciled
Sat 21 Oct, 14 hrs, Stedelijk Museum

Reflection on Barnett Newman: The Fragmented TaLIT
Sat 21 Oct, 16 hrs , Stedelijk Museum
Read Full Text: Genesis 9 (1) ..."I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth"

Reflection on Kazimir Malevich: The naked square EIRUV ChaTzeROT (Amalgamation of Courts)
Sun 22 Oct, 14 hrs, Stedelijk Museum

Reflection on Piet Mondrian: Piet Mondrian and the perfect typography of the Guest
Sun 22 Oct, 16 hrs, Stedelijk Museum

Per performance, different friends will participate.

About Joseph Sassoon Semah
Artist Joseph Sassoon Semah (1948) was born in Baghdad, where his grandfather, Hacham Sassoon Kadoori (1885–1971) was the president of the Babylonian Jews. Together with his parents, he was “resettled” to the state of Israel in 1950. In the mid-seventies Semah decided to leave Israel. He speaks in this regard as an exile by choice. He has lived and worked in London, Berlin, and Paris, and since 1981 has been located in Amsterdam. He has positioned himself as the “Guest.” By reading in his native language, Hebrew, Semah signals a lack of Jewish knowledge in art history.

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