Ruth Beraha

If God is the synthesis of men’s best qualities, idealised and brought outside ourselves, made other than us, he is unattainable, incomprehensible.

As an excuse and penance eternally inflicted me and you are forever and endlessly worse than that.

If the evil, criminal, thief, murderer is the synthesis of men’s worst qualities, stigmatised and brought outside ourselves, made other than us, he is unattainable, incomprehensible.

As an excuse and self-complacency me and you are forever and endlessly better than that.

If we would complicate the relationship between the individual and the otherness, if we would take back in me and you our best and worst qualities, what would we obtain? Which image would we venerate, which one would we abhor, which iconoclastic vision would we have of God, of the Evil, of you and me?

If I’m you and you are me maybe you’re the Evil and I am God.

Hic Sunt Leones (self-portrait) Studio for a performance

Following the noise from the outside, we found ourselves, inside the exhibition space, in front of a stadium bleacher full of Spartak Moscow or CSKA supporters.These are cheering an imaginary soccer game singing, shouting, drumming, lighting smoke bombs, brandishing scarves and flags. They live the exhibition space exactly how they live the stadium: they smoke, drink, eat, scream, twirl scarves.The space that normally would be the game field is instead the area where the audience is. Empty, so, or full by the viewers.On the wall right in front of the bleacher, a big mirror reflects the hooligans and their gestures. They are supporting a missing team on a missing field, yelling against themselves reflected in the mirror.In the moments the performance is not active the bleacher has traces of everything on it, scarves, used smoke bombs, cigarettes, empty cans, trash.

In gold we trust (self-portrait), 2018Charcoal on paper30 cm x 30 cm

If the Nazi gold ever existed, it has never been found. The sources do not agree on where this treasure is located: for some it is in the cargo of a ship sunk in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Iceland; for others it is in the coffers of the Vatican Bank or in those of the Swiss Bank, or even in an underground tunnel excavated in Poland by prisoners of a concentration camp.The display case shows the frottage of one of the ingots part of that treasure, on which stands the symbol of the Reich. It is known neither the author nor the moment when she or he had access to the legendary Nazi gold, but she or he could hastily imprint its physical presence on paper, leaving a tangible trace for posterity. The artist has decided to exhibit an irrefutable proof that turns the legend into reality. The title transforms the sentence printed on the US dollars notes into a consideration on money’s neutrality.

Run Home (self-portrait), 2018Eleven blown Murano glass baseball bats75 cm x 7,5 cm x 3 cm each

Run Home (self-portrait) consists of a series of colored baseball bats, made of blown Murano glass. The fragility and the preciousness of the material come into open conflict with the nature of the object, made to strike. The tactile sensuality of the matter contrasts with the potential violence, implemented or suffered. Ideally, if one would try to use one of the baseball bats to hit something or someone, the handle would crash into the hands of the one trying to deal the blow.The work is part of the artist’s research on the ambiguity of what is usually labeled as “evil”, trying to bring back within the self those dark parts that are generally kept away, but that, added to what we consider good, give shape to a human being in its entirety.

Promised Land (self-portrait), 2018un-performanceEnviromental dimensions

For the 7th edition SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2018, titled STRANGER COMES TO TOWN, Ruth Beraha invited a group of seniors from NYC to perform a stereotypical activity of the elderly age: to sit on a bench inside the exhibition space.The result of the artist’s call was an invisible performance, that questioned the ontological status of ageing and what being seniors means in our society. The empty bench in fact, became a symbol of a willingness to forget the status of being old and one day closer to death.The process of senilization is something that we all have to face sooner or later, nevertheless we found more comfortable to erase it from our daily panorama. With Promised Land (Self-portrait) Ruth Beraha shined a spotlight on what us, the “never say die” society, we usually refuse and forget: the simple and fragile existence of the old age.

Pensiero Stupendo (self-portrait), 2017Bianural audio track installation - documentationDimensions variable

Within the public space of “Take Me (I’m Yours)” exhibition, Ruth Beraha lets visitors partake in a moment of extreme intimacy site-specific conceived for Pirelli HangarBicocca: an invitation to dance, whispered in their ears. The physical reality of the exhibition space overlaps with the sound of the artist’s voice declaring her love, recorded in that very place. The technology employed makes it sounds three-dimensional, so that reality and fiction blur together in a disorienting way for the listener. Playing on the subtle divide between public and private, the work presents visitors with an experience that is personal and individual, yet also shared and collective

Illumination (self-portrait), 2017Etching on glass52 cm x 70 cm x 0,2 cm

A thin and transparent glass, ideally the glass of a window. On one side of it there’s written STRONZA, meaning bitch in Italian. It is a delicate hand made etching, written in a gothic font and a style that could remind an illumination in medieval books. The transparency of the glass gives the work a double feature: when both sides are enlightened the observer would be able to see someone else on the other side of the insult; when one side is in the darkness the observer would see just her/his reflection on the etched surface.

Untitled (self-portrait), 2016Yellow gold6 cm x 0,5 cm x 0,2 cm

The ambiguity of the of the word “work”, here intended as an artistic product, leaves the sentence open to different possible endings: “work makes you...”, in a jewel-form reproduction of the Auschwitz iron gate sign.

Self-portrait, 2015Direct print on plexiglass178 cm x 80 cm x 0,5 cm

An x-ray self-portrait is completed with several radiographies of strangers, which converge in shaping a unique whole. The skeleton pictured by the radiography is an object that becomes a subject, a living being image that is at the same time a death symbol. Iconography and iconoclasm are here strictly related: the work mirrors the viewer, but denies the subject, literally passing through skin and personal feature, showing only characteristic shared with every human being. In this way, portraying is negating the portrait practice: what remains is a collage of many individuals that build a one that denies the oneness.

Self-portrait, 2013Audio installation 5+1 channels, Dolby SurroundDimensions variable

The work was specifically conceived for the exhibition “DisUmanesimi”, in Florence. Thirteen voices of people different for age, gender and provenance, recorded in Tuscan city’s streets, read a self-portrait I wrote, in which only the place of birth is the real one of the person speaking. Every recorded track finishes with the statement “I’m from Florence”. In the audio installation every voice is adding on top of the other, so that the single voice is lost in a choir of voices that progressively increase in volume and quantity, until they become indistinguishable. The audio mix also represent the melting pot of cultures and origins, where the sense of a “pure Florentine” definition is denied in favor of an immersive multiple self-portraits in which the viewer is invited to loose her/himself.

Daydream (self-portrait), 2013Guache and inkjet on paper, series of sixteen29 cm x 21 cm each

Everybody immediately recognize Adolf Hitler at the first look, but no one could tell how it would feel like to be hand in hand with him, as the little girl portrayed in the picture is. Through drawings on the photographic image, this series gradually alters the somatic features and becomes more and more nightmare-like, opening up different made up stories that move the pictured reality to a surreal dimension. But, despite the several, creepy metamorphosis to which the image is subjected, the original photo remains the most uncanny and disturbing. In this work the issue of ambiguity in self and others perception is embodied into an iconological operation that put in relation reality and its deceptive representation.

Self-portrait 0, 2012Photographic print and oil on aluminium98 cm x 98 cm x 0,3 cm

The self-portrait denies itself from being seen, the more you try to see the represented face, the more the reflection conceals it while distorting it, the viewer and the environment.

Ruth BerahaMilan, 1986Lives and works between Venice and Milan.

After the degree in History of Art at the Università Statale of Milan, she moved to Jerusalem to attend the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Back in Milan, in 2014 she gets her MA at the Naba Academy of Visual Art and Curatorial Studies with professor Nicola Setari. She quit going to the stadium in 2010. She never quit playing soccer, not even during the five years in which she worked as an advertiser, getting till the B series.

Group Shows2018 – 777 in fondo a destra, curated by the students of A plus A’s School for Curatorial Studies, Venice2018 – SPRING/BREAK Art Show, curated by Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly, New York2017 – Take Me (I’m Yours), curated by Christian Boltanski, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Chiara Parisi, Roberta Tenconi, Pi-relli HangarBicocca, Milan2016 – NoPlaceNoSpace, third edition, Galleria del 49 Premio Suzzara, Suzzara2013 – disUmanesimi, coordinate by Marco Scotini, Galleria Biagiotti, Florence2013 – DayDream Factory, curated by Peter Friedl, Viafarini, Milan2013 – Occupare Orizzonti, curated by Bert Theis, Isola Art Center, Milan Assistant2017 – Roberto Cuoghi, 57° Biennale di Venezia, Venice2017 – Giorgio Andreotta Calò, 57° Biennale di Venezia, Venice2012 – Chiara Fumai, Documenta 13, Kassel Residencies2017 – Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, artists’ studios, Venice

Workshops2013 – Vasif Kortun, Naba Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan2012 – Jens Hoffman, Naba Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan2012 – Tim Rollins, Naba Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan

Education2014 – MA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies, NABA Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan2011 – Bezael Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel2010 – BA in History of Art, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan2007-2010 – V. Emanuele’s atelier, oil painting tecnique

ruthberaha@gmail.com+39 3284564341