Michael Halak | Men in the Sun
Paintings
Michael Halak’s self-portraits address fundamental questions pertaining to the politics of identity and the self-representation of young Palestinians in Israel. The ability to go (or not go) through modern life, through normal time, without immediately being identified as an “other”; the ability to rely on the appearance of an unmarked face, devoid of ethnic features, and to assimilate in the crowd without being stopped, examined, exposed.
In Untitled (2008), the artist is portrayed in a black leather jacket and a white T-shirt, one hand holding the other, thus reducing the dimensions of his body which is demarcated by a meticulous frontal angle. The artist is swallowed in the dark, shady background, and the figure appears as though it is absorbed into the darkness. A frontal representation of a portrait is often discussed in the context of police mug shots of suspects and interrogees. In this context, the artist’s figure appears nondescript; his eyes are shaded and unclear, therefore there is no eye contact with the viewer. His figure is devoid of unusual identifying details, and it appears as though he is trying to look as natural as he can so as not to attract any attention to his figure in the painting. The juxtaposition between the meticulous, detailed painterly realism and the bodily gestures creates a sense of exposure, discomfort, and perplexity.