Contemporary Palestinian artists actively engage with concrete, repurposing it as a tool for artistic, civic, and political resistance. They challenge dominant narratives, contest prevailing historical accounts, and confront oppressive structures. Their works reimagine shared spaces, contest the erasure of Palestinian history, and amplify marginalized voices. Concrete becomes a material embodiment of the complexities experienced by Palestinian artists residing and working within the State of Israel, its finally symbolizing resistance and catalyzing the reimagining of alternative futures.
This article provides a comprehensive analysis of how concrete is employed and represented within contemporary Palestinian artistic practices, shedding light on its role in shaping Palestinian experiences and contributing to a nuanced understanding of the Palestinian/Israeli context. By exploring the politics of concrete, the article enhances our understanding of its significance in contemporary Palestinian art and its place in the broader discourse of art history.
Palestinian art operating within the confines of the State of Israel constitutes a distinct branch of Palestinian art as a whole. Within this branch, one can discern the presence of what Eyal Weizman refers to as “politics in matter.”1 This mode of artistic expression actively engages in the ongoing struggle for Palestinian identity, nationalism, and human rights. It delves into the realm of action, fully cognizant of the political dynamics that permeate both artistic practice and everyday life. In doing so, it contributes to the exploration and understanding of concrete as a pertinent material in contemporary art creation, the latter located within a broader political fabric that encompasses a wide spectrum of actors utilizing or exerting influence over the implementation, visibility, and impact of the politics surrounding concrete. Consequently, concrete exemplifies the fusion of politics and materiality, effectively demonstrating how political forces infiltrate the built environment, extensive infrastructure systems, environmental conditions, and even the most intimate aspects of individual living conditions.
The present discussion encompasses a range of artistic expressions within the realm of Palestinian art, spanning various media and artistic practices. These artworks seek to portray and enact concrete environments, as well as the ramifications of concrete within both the public and the private spheres. In this context, concrete does not solely serve as a structural backdrop to the Palestinian/Israeli national conflict; rather, it emerges as an active and influential factor in shaping a fundamental political space. This space facilitates and perpetuates a continuous process of dominance and oppression, exemplified through various artistic practices engaged with concrete. Palestinian art unveils concrete as an instrument of oppression within conflict, the material being intricately linked to the destruction and confiscation of Palestinian residential and other areas.
Palestinian art ventures beyond mere reflection and critique of the injustices perpetrated through concrete. Rather, this art appropriates the ostensibly “Israeli-Zionist” concrete, transforming it into a tool for artistic, civic, and political resistance.2 This appropriation can be elucidated through a lens provided by Roberto Fernández Retamar in his exploration of how acts of appropriation are carried out by the colonized as a means to resist and undermine the dominion of the colonizer, thus enabling the colonized to assert their cultural identity and agency from within the very context of colonialism.3 The appropriation of concrete materials thus represents a form of cultural appropriation that facilitates empowerment of the colonized, affording Palestinians the opportunity to reinterpret the culture and language of the colonizer and thereby fundamentally contest the colonizer’s authority all the while reaffirming their own cultural identity. Appropriation, in this context, emerges as a manifestation of resistance and subversion, allowing the colonized to disrupt the narrative constructed by the colonizer by imbuing borrowed elements with their own significance, and thereby challenging the intended message propagated by the colonizer.4
Within the geopolitical context of Israel/Palestine, concrete has assumed multifaceted associations with struggle, violence, destruction, war, and defense. Notably, Germany’s construction of the Atlantic Wall during the Second World War stands as a prominent example of concrete’s utilization as a defensive measure in the military context. According to Paul Virilio, the significance of this fortification line resides primarily in its symbolic value, which Virilio characterizes as a “theatrical gesture.”5, trans. George Collins (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 46–47.] Adrian Forty subsequently referred to the Atlantic Wall as a form of “protective clothing.”6 Just as concrete previously had been linked to notions of progress and modernity, its military applications during the Second World War and its subsequent utilization within the geopolitical dynamics of Israel/Palestine, have forged a connection of concrete with enmity and fear. The very concrete that was employed as a means of security and protection in early modernism has been transformed into a symbol of apprehension and aggression towards the enemy.
The subsequent Berlin Wall and the Israeli West Bank barrier are both composed primarily of concrete walls that serve as instruments of division. These structures bear significant national, ethnic, and individual implications. The Berlin Wall on the one hand was perceived in East Germany as a protective barrier against fascism and Western capitalism; on the other hand, that same wall was perceived by the West as a tool for suppressing freedom and liberalism. Similarly the Israeli West Bank barrier is viewed by some Israelis as a security measure vital to the safeguarding of the existence of the State of Israel against armed threats, and as a prerequisite for any form of coexistence, national separation, or prospective political integration. Conversely from the Palestinian viewpoint, the wall-as-barrier manifests issues such as unemployment, poverty, fractured social networks, and a sense of imprisonment akin to living in a ghetto.7
Such interpretive dualities concerning concrete are inherent in the discourse that frames the material. Adrian Forty characterizes concrete as a substance replete with contradictions, defying a singular or unequivocal definition. To Forty, concrete embodies aspects of modernization and associations with industrialization, while also encompassing natural components. And while concrete has been utilized extensively throughout modernity, particularly in the present era—in which its consumption is vast—its usage has a long history, one dating back to ancient Roman times. Although produced using contemporary technological tools, concrete’s application can impose physically demanding labor upon its users. It possesses qualities of both fluidity and solidity, or “crudity and finesse,” as Le Corbusier aptly described it in reference to his Unité d’habitation (1952), thus invoking the juxtaposition of primitive and modern foundations inherent in concrete.8
Extending the potential of concrete even further today, contemporary Palestinian artists like Michael Halak, Saher Miari, Manal Mahamid, and Hannan Abu-Hussein incorporate concrete or its representation into their spatial and architectural works as a critical strategy. Through these artistic interventions, these artists effectively engage with the built environment—walls, checkpoints, borders— employing such concrete structures as powerful sites for resistance and negotiation. Their art confronts oppressive structures, disrupts spatial segregation, and imaginatively envisions alternative possibilities for shared spaces. These artists also address the architectural violence found in structures like separation walls resonating with the concept of “urbicide,” as articulated by Stephen Graham.9 Urbicide encompasses the deliberate undermining or destruction of the Palestinian urban fabric, which has become transformed, for example, into national parks such as the Mount Scopus Slopes National Park built on privately owned Palestinian land; or which is utilized as training areas by the Israeli military, such as in the southern Hebron Hills, resulting in the destruction of homes, erosion of the urban infrastructure, and the imposition of constraints that severely impact the vitality and functionality of urban spaces.10
This article first appeared in Art Journal vol. 83, no. 2 (Summer 2024)
