Karam Natour

The main protagonist in Natour’s video works and drawings is his own figure, which he takes on historic, cultural, and social journeys.

Natour exposes the distortion and powerlessness found in structured systems of information imposed by the hegemonic mechanisms.

Both the operator and himself speak broken English to each other, neither being completely comfortable, thus levelling the field and neutralising the power of the majoritarian which is also manifested through mastery of language.

Recorded in real time, the video shows the paramedics arriving about a few minutes later, bringing two teams, not only one, and demonstrating extreme care for the mysterious case of the immobilised artist.

[citation needed] There are many layers of meaning to unravel in this work, starting with the limited freedom of movement of the artist who depends on various benevolent outside forces, from audience to participants, and from exhibiting institutions to funders.

Natour opened himself up to risk, assuming the potential consequences of his action, maybe even putting a sick person’s life in jeopardy if another ambulance could not reach them, but also of course of being discovered by the paramedics for staging the situation.

In a newspaper review on the work wrote the art critic Dr. Shaul Setter: "Natour is playing a dangerous game.

But all this is deception, a dangerous game or a total lie: Natour summons the MDA team in vain, wastes their time "for nothing".

He isn't only a Christian martyr, he's a terrorist of representations, avenging his inferior civilian status and exploiting state institutions, exhausting their strength for no reason.

This is ostensibly an “im- moral” act: a spoiled and superfluous amusement, the theft of valuable social welfare resources.

His work comes out of his physical and intellectual paralysis — beginning when there is “nothing to say,” or when one doesn't succeed in saying anything, out of a refusal to speak a familiar social language, and from there embarks on a search.

It demands using art as a site that creates its meaning in opposition to the world, with meanings that have long been known, a place where there is controversy and danger, that doesn't respond to good taste"[4]Natour is an artist who undertakes sometimes poetic, sometimes blatant analyses of identity, citizenship, intimacy, and power relations by playing with language, and performing actions that rely on repetition, humor, and mutual trust.

Installation view of Natour's Nothing Personal at Tel Aviv Museum of Art , 2017