In October 2023, Tamy Ben-Tor uploaded her video work Dear Hamas to her private Instagram account. Within minutes, she received death threats and antisemitic slurs. She was fired from her teaching position in video performance at Hunter College in New York. What might have once sparked a discussion, or even a heated debate, about an artistic action, quickly turned into a campaign of obsessive violence and defamatory antisemitism, orchestrated by pseudo-pro-Palestinian student groups. The attack spread from art blogs in Brooklyn to Turkish national television. These events are part of a long-building rupture, a festering wound. It is no coincidence that in Dear Hamas, Tamy predicted—just days after the events of October 7th—the intensity of the poison that would set university campuses ablaze in the months to follow. Tamy has long been critical of the moralistic progressiveness that seeps into all areas of life, operating in the name of justice and equality with a mechanistic and opportunistic automatism and dogmatism belonging to propaganda. Her experience and response to the witch-hunt against her are deeply embedded in the new performance she will present at the Autumn Cult 2024.
Tamy lives and creates in Brooklyn, New York. She uses spoken word, soundtracks, costumes, masks, and wigs to create her characters, whom she defines as “hysterical incarnations of the environment.” These characters appear in video works and live performances. The totality of performance and unique skills required for each character blur the boundaries of action. One may wonder if Tamy is “playing,” “embodying,” or “channeling” her characters, which are exaggerated and heightened interpretations of the “normal” (which in itself undergoes a systematic extremization). Her work is composed of images and texts that build slowly out of exaggerated identification with problematic, offensive, and racist states of consciousness. Each character is created like a surrealist collage, where states of consciousness and mind that would “normally” never exist together in one personality coexist. This schizophrenia generates new and intense energy.
Tamy Ben-Tor is a graduate of the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem and holds a master’s degree in art from Columbia University in New York. Over the past twenty years, her works have been shown worldwide, primarily in the context of museums, galleries, and alternative exhibition spaces. Her work is part of a larger collaborative project with painter and photographer Miki Carmi. Alongside joint exhibitions, the two have published the following books: Disembodied Archetypes, Regency Arts Press, 2008 and Archive, Minerva Press, 2021.
Tami has, among other places, exhibited at: Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Atlanta Contemporary Art Center; Kunsthalle Winterthur; Cubitt, London; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Biennale of Sydney; Manifesta 7; Mori Museum, Tokyo; MoCA, Los Angeles; Reina Sofia, Madrid; PERFORMA 05 and PERFORMA 07 Biennials, New York.
Hebrew and English
Hazira and Tamy Ben-Tor wish to declare that the performance is not politically correct and may be perceived as offensive. The performance may include sexual language and content, as well as improper references to racial, national, and gender identity.
Photography is prohibited during the performance.
