In an interview Yoko Ono and partner John Lennon gave to Nova magazine in 1968, Ono coined the phrase “woman is the n***** of the world.” The seemingly politically incorrect expression then reappeared as the title of a track on the pair’s 1972 album Some Time in New York City.
It is a sentiment that pervades an outdoor exhibition of photographs by Israeli artist Alma Machnes Kass that is still on view in downtown Paris as part of this year’s Cultural Olympiad, through to September 14.
The running, jumping, swimming, shooting, weightlifting, and all the dozens of other areas of athletic excellence incorporated by contemporary Olympic Games may all be over and the medals dished out, but Machnes Kass’s unique thematic collection spells out one of the lesser discussed aspects of sports around the world.
The Cultural Olympiad website describes it as “a people’s festival featuring thousands of events (mostly free and open to the public) at the crossroads of art, sport, and Olympic values.” The official blurb goes on to intone that the Cultural Olympiad is “an opportunity to celebrate the values, meaning, and diversity that sport and culture have in common.”
That may be the noble lofty ideal the Olympic Games honchos are eager to promote, but as the members of the Maccabi Kishronot Hadera soccer club in Israel can no doubt testify, the facts on the ground – or the turf – in some corners of the world clearly and painfully demonstrate there is still some way to go when it comes to female soccer players.
A new exhibit at the Cultural Olympiad
The “Like A Dance in the Dark” exhibition is produced in collaboration with the Paris-based Miss Parisette outfit run by Elinor Agam, a theater director and former cultural attaché to the Israeli Embassy in the French capital. It features 22 outsize monochrome prints of scenes taken both on and off the field at the soccer club in question. These are patently not glamor shots taken to glorify the so-called “beautiful game.” There is a frisson to the photos, which suggests a palpable subtext that demands serious consideration.
“This is different. This is in black and white, and it is about the corporeal,” Machnes Kass notes, when I mention that our paths first crossed when she had an outdoor exhibition in Jerusalem, with large color prints of women soccer players. At that time the spread caused quite a stir, particularly because it was located close to the mainly religious neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe in Jerusalem. Before long, almost every patch of bare female skin had been covered with black spray paint.
Machnes Kass did not choose the subject matter by chance. Besides having the creative bent, gift, and eye to do the business, she also has genetics on her side, as she is the niece of 1970s-1980s local soccer legend Maccabi Netanya striker Oded Machnes. Familial backdrop aside, she patently wants to take a stand on an issue she feels is of paramount importance and needs to be addressed across the global reach of the Olympic Games: the sexual discrimination and the exploitation and objectification of women to market and sell products.
“There is nothing sexual about my photographs,” she states somewhat superfluously. “And there is the beauty of allowing the body to be free, unrestricted.”
The idea was to – pardon the photographic pun – focus on physical fluidity rather than womanly charms. This dictated Machnes Kass’s choice of palette. “I wanted the viewer to pay more attention to the women’s bodies in terms of the movement rather than on the grass, or even notice that it is taking place on a soccer pitch [field].”
Black and white will do that. It accentuates form and texture. “When you see green grass, that automatically takes you to a certain place. Like this, there is a sense of defamiliarization, which leaves room for cerebral and emotional maneuver,” she explains.
Interestingly, you never see the soccer ball in the frames. These are not action shots designed to display the thrills-and-spills factor of soccer. The spotlight is very much on the soccer players and how they move and conduct themselves on the pitch. “The soccer is not the crux of the matter here; it’s just the platform which shows the spontaneity of the [fluidity of the] body,” Machnes Kass declares.
The pictures convey far more than just the women going about their business on the playing field. There are some poignant behind-the-scenes shots that impart more about the chemistry between the young women, and some of their individual inner struggles, than how many goals they may score or how well they control the middle of the park.
To put it politely, female Israeli soccer players do not exactly rake it in. They can only dream about the financial rewards claimed by their top counterparts in places like the US and the UK. Machnes Kass thinks she knows why, at least when it comes to the American scene. “Soccer is not the national sport in the United States, so women were allowed to take on some of that. In Israel, soccer is the national sport, so it is much more difficult for women to get into that.” It is yet another area of life here in which males rule supreme.
With the world’s media in general fueling anti-Israeli sentiment, it is more than a little heartening to find at least one Israeli who is able to strut her stuff – and meaningful stuff too – out there, in this case slap bang in downtown Paris. Machnes Kass is, understandably, overjoyed to have been given an opportunity to set out her artistic stall on such a glittering stage.
She says she has also been greatly encouraged by the responses to her pictures on the Parisian streets. “I went there a couple of times, for a few days. It is a busy area, and lots of people pass by there. It was very moving to see people – adults and children – stopping, children asking their parents about the pictures, and women taking them in. That’s the real reward for my work.”
Maybe, just maybe, art can have some impact on the way we think and relate to the important issues. Notwithstanding my enthusiasm, Machnes Kass was not tempted to take the higher ground. “Let’s get the hostages back first,” she laughs wryly, bringing me back down to earth with a resounding thud. She eventually relents somewhat. “You are dealing with tiny steps here [with regard to the difference art can make], but yes, that’s what I am aiming for.”
The ambiance of the black-and-white prints could not be more different from the razzmatazz, 50,000-watt, multi-billion-dollar world of the upper echelons of the male soccer world. The players in the “Like A Dance in the Dark” spread are caught in various athletic poses, but you get the sense that there is probably little showboating here or outrageous melodramatics designed to trick the referee into penalizing a member of the other team.
The male soccer world is rife with the latter puerile antics. But then there is so much more at stake, so much more glory and, more to the point, bucket loads of greenbacks. Male professional soccer is big business and is targeted and trumpeted by the media as the well-heeled protagonists are turned into demigods.
The young women deftly and lovingly snapped by Machnes Kass are light years away from all that mummery. They are clearly on the soccer pitch simply to play the game and to do their best to overcome their rivals. That this is not always the case is evident from some of the more intimate frames that exude empathy, togetherness, and mutual support. This is about the individuals who make up the whole, rather than parading their skills, prancing around, and grabbing the headlines.
And it is about women playing a sport they love, for the sake of it. There is nothing of the sex-sells advertising vibe here. “One of the project’s goals is to create a diverse visual representation of women through the world of female soccer,” Machnes Kass explains. “The project deals not only with a female sport but also with the freedom of the body.” That is, the human body per se. Nothing flirtatious or sexual about it.
The idea was also to eschew any unnatural gesture aimed at the lens for effect. “In the presence of a camera, we usually constrain ourselves to proper poses – stand straight, smile, stop moving, etc.,” she adds. “These images bring us freedom and spontaneous motion without any social filters.”
This is a refreshing take on an area of life that naturally tends toward hype and hyperbole for the unashamed purpose of making as much hay as possible while the sun shines and the TV camera lights burn brightly. The fact that these are Israeli sportswomen portrayed by an Israeli artist, in this awful day and age, makes the venture all the more noteworthy and pleasing.
I went out on a limb and hesitantly suggested to Machnes Kass that maybe there is something to be said for the biblical claim that “out of Zion shall the Torah come forth” as written in the Book of Isaiah. Perhaps here is a positive message for all the world to see. “I don’t know about that,” she demurs. I pressed on – Were there any other photographers, non-Israelis, out there pursuing this burning issue? “Not to my knowledge,” Machnes Kass admits.
So she is bringing something new and different to the global discourse plate. “I suppose so,” she says, gradually warming to the matter. “It makes a change to have something wholesome and positive from Israel out there in the international public eye, and on the biggest stage of them all.”
Agam subscribes to that notion and is delighted with the way the exhibition has been rolled out for all to see. “It is an elegant exhibition that has been beautifully displayed,” she notes, adding that [media] hacks from all over the world could catch a good eyeful and, if they so chose, could mention it in their dispatches.
“It was right across the street from the Olympic media center, where 5,000 journalists spent two months covering the games. The journalists had to see something positive that was connected to Israel, whether they liked it or not,” Agam laughs.
Now, wasn’t that a fine thing.
