Interview with Irit Rogoff, Haaretz, Dec 2006

'Don't panic - question the fear'

By Dana Gilerman

Published Haaretz, Israel, Dec 2006

As I waited for Prof. Irit Rogoff, I scrutinized every woman who approached and wondered if she fit the profile of an "academic who made it abroad." Rogoff certainly does. She is an imposing and impressive woman in her 50s, and is well-dressed. I said this to Rogoff, who responded that she was always surprised by the gap between what she envisions and actual reality. 

This can, perhaps, be attributed to her worldview: Rogoff distances herself as much as possible from absolute designations and unchanging categories. She believes only in posing questions and attempting to create new possibilities. Rogoff, a professor in the department of visual cultures at Goldsmiths College at the University of London and the director of an international research project, just visited Israel for five weeks. She met with students and people from the art world at the Kutlug Ataman exhibition, which she curated at the Herzliya Museum. She was surprised to discover how much the Israeli art world had changed over the last decade. 

"There is a new, different perspective, very different from the outdated, academic perspective that prevailed here until not long ago," she says. "I found a new generation of researchers who are active in the field, who feel nourished by it and who discuss the same questions that engage me and my colleagues in London. Everything is happening simultaneously. There is a sense of contemporary culture and it's wonderful." 


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Rogoff, a native of Jerusalem, left Israel in the 1970s to study abroad. "I think this was typical of a whole generation of people at that time, who felt a need to leave the place. There was a feeling of a world that was opening up and there was a desire to be part of a larger world." She came to London where she completed three degrees in art history. When she finished her doctorate, she realized that "the last thing I wanted to work in is art history." 

Her need to escape the narrow field of art history and engage in broader, interdisciplinary thinking was unexpectedly answered by a Harvard University post-doctoral grant. After concluding her studies, she began to delve into the field of critical theory and accepted an offer from the University of California to set up a small doctoral program in the field. 

London calling 

On a visit to London to lecture at the prestigious Goldsmiths College, she received an offer to establish a new department in visual cultures. Rogoff readily agreed. "I left California very happily because in the late 1990s, California had become a conservative kind of place," she says. "There was no place left for speculative thinking." 

Europe had also changed. "There is no comparison between the U.K. I studied in during the 1970s and 1980s and the U.K. of the 21st century. It's a completely different culture that is constantly being renewed and changed, which loses its traditions with each wave of immigration," she says. "The education system has also changed completely since the establishment of the European Union. We receive students from all over Europe and also hire teachers from all over Europe. I walk into a classroom and talk to people from 15 different places. As far as I'm concerned, this is a fantastic lab for all the things that are currently of interest to me - to create a meeting place for critical theory and contemporary art, to delve into the conditions and urgencies of our lives." 

Which are? 

"The things that are urgent for us, the citizens and not the state, from a political, economic and social perspective. To distinguish between the emergency that the state creates and urgency, what we see as urgent and important for the citizen. 

"For example, in Europe there are now endless discussions under way about the legality of immigration. The discussions revolve around the question of whether there should or should not be immigrants or foreign workers, what is their legal status and so on. But these aren't the right questions. What should be discussed is the cultural difference, the way in which immigration influences and changes us. One of the things we realized is that there is no such thing as 'them' and 'us,' which is a very basic division in Western thought. We are changing at the same time, relative to each other, under reciprocal influences. The 'other' has always been a part of us, since the beginning of humanity. It's not a function of immigration, slavery or colonialism." 

It has already been internalized in some way. 

"Nevertheless, the states continue to create artificial crises and to turn foreign workers and illegal immigrants into criminals or victims. There is too little emphasis on us and on how much this change is necessary for us to create a culture that is truly contemporary. This also relates to terrorism. In the century in which we live, there is a tremendous production of fear. Countries create fear, scare their populations. It seems to me that one of the most important things to do, from a political perspective, is not to panic." 

What can be done instead of panicking? 

"Question what this fear is. How is it possible to break down the connection between it and what creates it, ostensibly the terrorism. Several years ago, there was an exhibition called 'The Short Century,' curated by Okwui Enwezor of Nigeria, a short time before he curated the Documenta exhibition in Kassel. The exhibition dealt with national liberation movements in Africa from 1945 to 1989. I learned two major things from this exhibition, which afterward I tried to apply in writing and in thought: First, there are connections between the resistance movements in North Africa, Europe, North America and Latin America, and they create an entirely new alternative geography that does not run through nations. Secondly, and I was very surprised by this, the socio-political radicalism that characterized the West during the second half of the 20th century actually began in North Africa, during Algeria's war of liberation." 

In her exhibition at the Herzliya Museum, she tries to apply some of the questions that occupy her academic work, which relate to a sense of foreignness, nationalism and identity. The exhibition also allows Rogoff to express her new direction in life, since taking a sabbatical from academia: the attempt to establish a closer connection with the ground level; to work together with artists and to reevaluate, with young museum directors in Europe, the concept of museum space and the observer's place within it. 

But it seems that the exhibit, which perhaps marks a professional turning point for Rogoff, plays an additional role in her career: It is reconnecting her to the place she left some 30 years ago. Surprisingly, it is Rogoff's first time curating an exhibit at an Israeli institution since she left, and working with local artists and curators who do not belong to the elite circle she has been in contact with for years. This circle includes Ariella Azoulay, Adi Ofir, Orly Lubin and Hanan Hever. Perhaps that is also why few in Israel are acquainted with her, despite her great success abroad. 

"In a conscious way, I didn't want to deal with issues relating to this place, because I didn't want to have to take a position," she answers. "My life's work has been to try and find a way to ask other questions from a different place and to connect it to Israel in indirect ways. That is what I did in the past and perhaps also in Ataman's exhibition. I was the one who wanted to bring Kutlug's exhibition here; no one wanted it. I insisted. I wanted the Herzliya Museum, because it's neutral both from a political perspective and an urban perspective. I think this is my way of being committed to what is happening here."