Riff Cohen: ‘Many Israeli artists become reluctant ambassadors’

In mid-2011, YouTube exploded with the video of a petite, dark-haired girl dancing around the colourful streets and markets of Paris, along with a belly dancer and foreign looking youngsters, singing in French to an upbeat rhythm mixed with oriental tunes. It turned Riff Cohen into a sensation. Born in Tel Aviv to a French-Algerian mother and an Israeli father with a Tunisian background, the 27-year-old has been working towards her first official video since childhood.

The Cohen parental home is in Ramat Aviv Gimmel, a wealthy neighborhood in the north of Tel Aviv. The well-groomed tastefully furnished living room, opening into a back yard with an equally well-groomed cat strolling around, is a far cry from the rugged, alternative image of Riff Cohen herself, who answers the door in torn-up skinny jeans and an oversized sweater. ‘I really enjoy saying that I grew up here, because there’s such a specific stigma on this place, which I really don’t feel like I’m a product of,’ she relishes in breaking stereotypes. ‘It would have been proper for me to say that I’m from north Tel Aviv, but why should I? It’s good, it’s starting to change the stigma of things.’

I speak to Cohen a couple of days after she has signed an artist contact with AZ records, the French branch of universal records. Musically, she says she doesn’t approach French audiences differently from Israeli ones. ‘My approach was very universal from the start. But the understanding of certain concepts is totally different. If I say that I’m religious in Israel, they’ll think that I’m right-wing.’ One internet forum really did say that in those very words; ‘Really,’ she laughs. ‘That’s really funny. Just what I meant. On other hand, the fact that I didn’t serve in the army is considered to be very leftist or pacifist. It’s amazing how people look for something to hang onto, even the smallest thing, to jump to conclusions. Just let me be a musician, let go of the other concepts.’

Cohen is Riff’s mother’s maiden name, although the singer was married by the time the video for A-Paris was ready. ‘I sort of ‘got stuck’ with my name, because I started getting famous before I got married. I thought that changing my name would be weird,’ she says. ‘Perhaps I should have done it. Everybody is pissed at Israelis now. Politics seeps into every level, even down to boycotts at the bazar, which sadly is not just about politics. I regret the fact that a few years ago it would have not mattered that I’m Israeli and that my name is Cohen. I’m sure many Israeli artists become reluctant ambassadors. On the other hand, the fact that we’re Israeli creates a great deal of interest.’

Riff’s album deals extensively with questions of identity. It’s a theme which Cohen, who was born with two mother tongues and carries a soft French accent to her Hebrew from the very start, is preoccupied with. ‘If I have to introduce myself, I just say where my parents and grandparents are from, and that I’m just a first-generation in Israel,’ she says. ‘It’s hard for people to make this connection of an Israeli whose grandmother speaks Arabic and dresses in traditional Tunisian clothes; to them, you’re either an Israeli or an Arab.’

For many Israelis, it remains the most challenging concept of all. The melting pot policy, which was implemented on immigrants for decades, did its best to erase the attributes of their origin cultures right down to their names. Binary identity concepts left hardly any room for exploration. ‘Zionistic Israel erased all the roots and tried to create a new culture, but we’re still in a void of sorts, emulating western culture,’ says Cohen. ‘I also wear jeans and T-shirts; it annoys me, because they don’t necessarily reflect who I am. My grandmother wore cape-like dresses and heavy golden jewellery, as did her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. It’s only because I’m in Israel that I'm wearing jeans and T-shirts that I'm wondering whether I should go to the Mikveh or not.’

Cohen channels this introspective idea into her work. The photo on the cover of the album released in Israel, a black and white of a young girl with braids, is her paternal grandmother Fortuna, who came to Israel from the Tunisian island of Djerba. It was the first photo ever taken of her, for her passport. Cohen tells, with great pride, of a woman of extraordinary talents and character, capable of holding several conversations at the same time, who cannot read nor write. ‘When they lived in Jaffa they used to buy a sheep, raise it for a while and then take it to the butcher when Passover, or some other big event or holiday, came along. I remember seeing the sheepskins hanging out to dry. She used to cover me with a sheepskin blanket, and it had a very strong, unpleasant smell,’ she reminisces. ‘There’s something much more respectful about that, rather than some businessman who has schnitzel for lunch every day without giving it a moment’s thought. My father was ashamed of it all, because it’s something supposedly primitive. But here I am, third generation - and I think that it’s something to showcase and be proud of. We shouldn’t hide it. It’s part of Israel’s cultural landscape. Everyone has their own culture, and we should showcase it and connect to it - without denial, without drawing a blank eye, without erasing our roots and trying to just be western. Part of our job as artists living in Israel’s sixties, is to search for Israeli culture and to create it.’

Café Babel, 21.12.2012

KLONE YOURSELF

Photo: Alexandra Belopolsky

I've been following his strange creatures for years. Fox-like predators with sharp teeth, giant birds with menacing beaks, monstrous fish. All staring at the passersby through big, human-like eyes full of sadness. You can see them all over Tel Aviv - on crumbling buildings and electrical cabinets, on walls and on rooftops, in hidden corners and in plain sight. Klone Yourself (or simply, Klone) is one of Israel's most prolific and creative street artists. His pseudonym is a comment on the modern lifestyle. "We all go to school, enlist in the army, carry smartphones, watch TV – it's a form of self-cloning. We all follow a norm. The point is to be a different type of clone, a clone of yourself, so to say. An original one".

I meet him at his studio, in a warehouse in Tel Aviv. Looking at him you would never guess that this 29 year old guy, of average height and build and straightforward features, is the mind behind some of the most haunting images of the city. Throughout our conversation he never stops cutting shapes - on August 23rd he opens his first solo exhibition abroad at the Urban Spree gallery in Berlin, and there is still much work to be done. It will be a massive paper installation, mostly in black, white and brown, akin to the one he presented in Tel Aviv in 2011. Klone's art varies in accordance to the location – his gallery work, his street work and his studio work are all inherently different. "I believe that what's done in the street should stay in the street. A gallery is a completely different stage, and it needs to be treated differently in terms of space and medium".

This moto is carried into his street art as well – he never repeats the same work, making it a point to create something unique for every place where he leaves his mark, especially in the past few years. "I no longer paint simply for the sake of there being a painting", he clarifies, "I paint for the sake of leaving a particular painting on a specific location". Recently, his palette changed as well, leaving the bright multi-colored works a thing of the past. "I don't see the need for color now", he says. "I can now express myself well without hiding behind the colors. A lot of times when you create a colorful work, the viewer is hooked on the colors. I like dealing with my subject by going down to the basics – black and white, and maybe an additional color. I think it tells a lot more about me as an artist, in the same way that a good sketch tells more about an artist than some amazing painting where you can't see the brush strokes".

Photo: Alexandra Belopolsky

As someone working in a field where his work can be, and often is, destroyed at any given moment, Klone is more than comfortable with that risk. He has been known to go back and paint over locations where his previous work has been erased, sometimes several times on the same spot. But that, to him, is an essential part of being an artist, street or otherwise. "Things need to be erased and renewed", he states, presenting a philosophy that might sound radical. "Nothing should be eternal .I think it would do the art world a lot of good if we were to dilute about 10 percent of it every year. This incisive preoccupation with what's already been done… Just the sheer costs of storing all that! When they could have gone into supporting young art and new generations. How many people do you know who have actually seen the real Mona Lisa? Is that really important? It's already public domain as far as images on the internet go. No one has actually seen it. People know the image, they learn about it, but when you go to look at it you find some picture behind glass as thick as a wall and guards. You don't get to really see it."

Photo: Alexandra Belopolsky

The Berlin exhibition came about after the curator of the gallery discovered online the book which Klone had independently published last year – a collection of works he describes as a travelogue. It was the curator's first encounter with the artist's work, in spite of the fact that there are places in Berlin (as well as Amsterdam, Paris and Saint Petersburg) where he left creative testimonies of his previous visits to the city. But perhaps it is understandable, since he makes sure to choose the less central and more run-down spots for his art wherever he goes. "I want to relate to a place that accepts me", he says when I wonder whether painting in a posh part of the city may not be considered as a challenge, to bring his world view to the people who want to hear it the least. "In an overly primped area the painting would look like mere decoration, regardless of how subversive it might be. The most subversive work, if you put it in a gallery in a nice frame, under good lighting, would look like something to be hung in some rich man's living room. I prefer to work in less groomed areas."

Yet groomed or not, painting in a city where he doesn't live is a completely different experience for Klone: "I'm not used to how the city reacts to me. It's a different vibe. When I travel, I stay in the city for a while and only then do I paint something. But it still doesn't feel like, say, Berliner art. It feels like my own art. When I paint in Tel Aviv it's different, it's a part of Tel Aviv. It's Tel Aviv art".

Photo: Alexandra Belopolsky

Klone was not, however, born in Tel Aviv. He was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, back when it was the USSR. When he was 11 years old his family immigrated to Israel. The uprooting from his home and the displacement did not come easy for the young boy. Five years later he took up a can of paint and, years before evolving into street art, joined the world of graffiti tagging. For the young émigré struggling to fit in, it felt natural. It was a way of bringing himself out, of leaving his mark on Israeli society, of saying "Here I am!". He was not the only one – many graffiti and street artists were immigrants. They still are - Klone is a member of a group of artists, which include such locally well-known names as Know Hope, Foma and Zerocents – all immigrants. They hang out together, and often go out on painting missions together. Some might argue that perhaps it was the immigration experience that turned them into street artists in the first place. "Had we stayed in Ukraine, I would probably have become an engineer, like half the people there", laughs Klone. Seems as though design of urban spaces is in his blood, after all.

Café Babel - Berlin, 20.08.2012

Yuriy Gurzhy: ‘Achtung! The party is Russian-rock-free’

The stage is small at the Kaffee Burger club in the centre of Berlin. A band dressed in punky, predominantly red outfits, is playing a Balkan-sounding variation on the Jewish hora, a traditional circle dance. The crowded dancefloor is a formation of German, Russian, Jewish, Spanish concert-going circles. They embrace in exhilaration, dancing faster and faster, creating an ecstatic mixture of unadulterated joy.

Rotfront, the resident Berliner band who make Emir Kusturica’s No Smoking Orchestra look like a tired stereotype, was founded in 2003 by the Ukrainian-Jewish Yuriy Gurzhy and Hungarian Simon Wahorn. Describing the German-Russian-English-Hungarian mix of Kleyzmer, Balkan, punk, reggae, hip hop and electro they play is a challenging task indeed. No wonder they felt their sound required a whole new term, hence: Emigrantski Raggamuffin. ‘I hate the word ‘crossover’, it’s so overused,’ says Yuriy, whom I meet for dinner in Cologne a few hours before he is due to DJ for an international party. ‘We basically juggle with elements of musics of different nations, with different musical styles, with certain cultural layers. The most important thing is that it works. It’s like a cocktail: you can mix something no-one has ever mixed before, but if it doesn’t taste good no-one will drink it. Perhaps the initial reaction would be ‘Wow, that’s interesting’, but it won’t last. Really, it’s all just pop music.’

On top of playing guitar for Rotfront, Yuriy is the second half of the famous Russendisko events (which he co-created with Russian author Wladimir Kaminer), and a successful DJ in his own right. ‘Achtung! The party tonight is Russian-rock-free,’ he warns me jokingly, making it clear that the Russendisko (‘Russian disco’) line of Russian/Ukrainian-speaking underground/ criminal/pop folk remains the same even when it leaves its usual residence at Torstraße 60, Berlin.

Russendisko compilation UKRAINE do AMERIKA

The small traditional restaurant in the centre of Cologne is a little piece of German countryside across from a shopping mall, whose neon lights can be seen through the large glass windows. Wood panelling, large wooden tables and long benches are decorated with red and white chequered pillows and faded pictures in dark wooden frames. In the background Germany’s pride and joy, Lena, is singing the 2010 eurovision song contest-winning hit Satellite. Yuriy orders the meal of the day, pasta with mushrooms and cream sauce, and a cup of green tea. It’s not quite the vodka-garlic combination he celebrates in one of Rotfront’s biggest live hits. ‘Not drinking?’ I ask, ignoring my own choice of a coke light. Yuriy retorts with a popular Russian joke. ‘Little Vovochka comes to his parents and says ‘Mom, Dad, can you imagine? Lenochka doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke!’ ‘Really, Lenochka?’, the parents ask the ten-year-old girl. ‘You don’t drink and don’t smoke? Why?’ ‘I GOT SICK OF IT!’’ he finishes off, imitating a deep hoarse voice and laughing.

Yuriy followed his parents from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, to Berlin fifteen years ago. ‘They came up with the decision. I just came with them, like on a big adventure. Missing a chance to go to Germany would have been stupid. In my heart I decided that if I didn’t like it I’d come back – those were not after all, the sixties, when leaving meant burning all bridges.’ Evidently, he liked it enough to stay. Visiting Kharkiv on a regular basis, Yuriy has made Berlin his home, making an unexpected career in music. Aside from Rotfront, Russendisko and general DJ gigs, Yuriy is part of a long line of various musical projects. The most recent of those is Mama Diaspora, along with Serbian Igor Sakach (Ingvo), Ukrainian Ivan Moskalenko (DerBastler) and Moldavian Eugeniu Didic (former member of Zdob şi Zdub). The more electronically-inclined Mama Diaspora, established at a festival in Belarus in 2009, is just recent adding to a myriad of bands showcasing endless variations on the Balkan sound. It suffices to mention the New-York based Balkan Beat Box – born, of all places, in Israel - to give a shining example of the musical invasion of the new millennia – the Balkan invasion.

Nor is Berlin falling behind. The city which prides itself on being the world’s electro capital is now bringing a different style to the front. With the Balkantronika wandering party line, DJ Robert Soko’s regular BalkanBeats night at club Lido in Kreuzberg, and live concerts by various bands, it is safe to say that the genre is in Berlin to stay. During Music Week in September 2010, Berlin announced its goal is mixing different forms of music, so it is indeed a small wonder that for Rotfront playing at Kaffee Burger feel like home. By nine o’clock Yuriy and I are the only two customers left sitting in the tiny restaurant. On the way to the S-Bahn station he scouts the people around us. ‘You know Valenki are in style now?’ he says, referring to this winter’s popular trend of UGGs and their likes, which resemble the traditional Russian felt boots. ‘Hipsters in Valenki,’ he laughs.

Café Babel, 18.02.2011

Fünf Minuten mit Arie Kizel über das Deutschalndbild in israelischen Schulbüchern

Herr Kizel, die Deutsch-Israelische Schulbuchkommission, die Empfehlungen zur Darstellung beider Länder in Schulbüchern gibt, hat ihre Arbeit wieder aufgenommen. Was erwarten Sie sich davon?
Auf jeden Fall sollte die Kommission einen Blick in israelische Schulbücher werfen, um nachzusehen, wo die Lerninhalte über deutsche Geschichte aufhören.

Wie ist denn der jetztige Stand des Deutschalndbildes?
 Alles, was nach 1945 geschah, darüber wird so gut wie gar nicht berichtet. Es gibt eine Tendenz, eine Linie von Bismarck über die Weimarer Republik bin hin zu Hitler zu ziehen. Das soll die Wahrnehmung von Deutschland formen. Themen wie Wiedervereinigung oder die Erinnerungskultur werden jedoch nur sehr kurz berührt. Das heißt nicht, dass der Holocaust nicht unterrichtet werden soll, aber es ist auch wichtig, darauf zu achten, dass es nach 1945 auch ein Deutschland gab.

Welche Auswirkungen hat das auf israelische Schüler?
 Sie bekommen nur einen Teil des Deutschlandbildes vermittelt und befinden sich in einer Zwickmühle - ihnen gefällt das moderne Deutschland. Viele von ihnen reisen dorthin, besonders nach Berlin. Und plötzlich fragen sie sich: Wie kann es sein, dass wir darüber nie etwas erfahren haben?

Wie kann dieser Teil der deutschen Geschichte ergänzt werden?
Wir müssen uns darüber klar sein, dass es mit Deutschland nach 1945 weiterging. Das sollte unterrichtet werden. Der Mauerfall, die Wiedervereinigung, das sind Ereignisse die man nicht einfach weglassen kann.



Jüdische Allgemeine, 29.10.2009