ISREAL - On his father's side he's a third-generation Holocaust survivor, on his mother's side the scion of a prominent Palestinian Christian family. In his work, artist Dor Guez, 29, explores his roots while refusing to be labeled. "I have full confidence in my identity. All the definitions such as I'm a Jew, I'm an Israeli, I'm a Palestinian, I'm a Christian Arab, are something that I don't want to use or contain. "What is art, if they're trying to castrate it of the only condition that justifies it - the test of criticism. I have no interest in abstraction or in imitating the traditional Western artistic narrative, but I have a desire to use the tools of that language. These are two different activities. Time will tell if my exhibition within the walls of Israeli museums is an activity that makes me a part of the quasi-Western Israeli canon or establishes the presence of another narrative. It's a real dilemma: Is an exhibition like 'The Nation's Groves' a Trojan horse or a fig leaf?" [link]
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