Joint artwork of Revital Arbel and Friedemann Derschmidt: connected

Artwork: Room Installation / Multichannel Video

Revital Arbel and Friedeman Derschmidt, artists and a couple in life, share a multimedia work called “Connected”. They reveal and document a video meeting, conversations, situations, thoughts and emotional outpourings, in their daily life since the time of the Corona epidemic until today. The physical distance between Vienna – Derschmidt’s place of residence and Jerusalem – Arbel’s place of residence and the ongoing time plays a significant and essential role in their video work.

Artwork name: Travestie

a joint work by Revital Arbel and Friedemann Derschmidt

Collage of Photographs

The rôle travesti is the trouser role and in ballet, where the dominant language is French, opposite-sex roles are danced en travesti or en travestie. The word means “disguised” in French. Depending on sources, the term may be given as travesty, travesti, or en travesti.

This work consists of several photo snippets. Firstly, there is a series of photos of Revital Arbel’s eldest son, who is dressed as a nurse in a Purim costume. The other photos show Friedemann Derschmidt’s grandmother’s brother-in-law in two very different situations. One as a so-called Flintenweib – a military ruse in which Wehrmacht soldiers disguised themselves as Russian peasant women in order to be able to get closer to the enemy, and in the other pictures you can see the same man dressed as a woman in a classic play. These pictures come from a US prisoner of war camp in Colorado / USA.

‏

Artwork name: Eco Erotica

Artwork dimension: 53X130 cm

Triptych

Technique: Photograph printed on textured paper

A tree trunk invoking memories of primeval eroticism, pregnancy, and birth alongside the body of the artist, mother of five, and obstetrician emit a deep connection to nature and mother earth and present musings about sexuality, fertility, and a longing for a simpler world.

Artwork name: Placenta

Year: 2021

Artwork dimension: 33 x 26 cm

Technique: Printed fabric and embroidery

The placenta is an organ that forms in the womb, during pregnancy. The placenta is connected to the developing baby by the umbilical cord. Through the umbilical cord, the placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to the developing baby.
It’s a symbol of hope and a prospect for a new horizon

Artwork name: Still Death

Year: 2021

Artwork dimension:

Technique: edited photography printed on silk, embroidery

Revital Arbel uses photography and embroidery to express her feelings and thoughts about the relations between her profession and the natural world. The natural harmony and disharmony in nature relates to her work as she finds herself on the thin line between the natural order and human intervention, often without resolution.

At the center of the work Defloration stand flowers photographed by the artist during a family trip to Portugal. Nevertheless, the word “defloration” usually refers to the act of depriving a woman of her virginity by rupturing the hymen through sexual intercourse. A close look reveals that the pastoral photographs of flowers is actually a collage in which some of the flowers are actually photographs of hymens that have been surgically restored. Embroidered flowers are interspersed with the bare embroidered hymens.

“These flowers captured my attention because of the sensuality of the layers of their petals. I than replaced some of them with sad flowers of virginity restored by me to save the name and life of a young woman. By repairing the hymen, I help women survive but also perform an unnecessary and unneeded medical procedure thus helping in a way to establish wrong rituals.

Art helps me mend this, by embroidering over my surgery stiches I can express my voice and the many voices of women whom their torn hymens I repaired. I believe that with my art I can help making a global change in the attitude toward women, their sexuality, their right over their body and stopping acts such as genital mutilation and honor killings.”