Yael Bartana
Past exhibition
Inferno, 2013
One channel video and sound installation
22 min
Edition 1/8, 3 AP
B-YBARTANA-.15-0002
The starting point of 'Inferno' is the construction of the third Temple of Solomon (Templo de Salmão) in São Paulo by a Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal Church. Built to biblical specifications, this...
The starting point of 'Inferno' is the construction of the third Temple of Solomon (Templo de Salmão) in São Paulo by a Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal Church. Built to biblical specifications, this new temple is a replica of the first temple in Jerusalem, the violent destruction of which signaled the diaspora of the Jewish people in the 6th century BCE. 'Inferno' confronts this conflation of place, history, and belief, providing insight into the complex realities of Latin America that have given rise to the temple project. Bartana’s film employs what she refers to as “historical pre enactment,” a methodology that commingles fact and fiction, prophesy and history. Her work addresses the grandiose temple project through a vision of its future: Does its construction necessarily foreshadow its destruction? Using a powerful cinematic language, 'Inferno' collapses histories of antiquity in the Middle East with a surreal present unfolding halfway around the world.