The Other in Palestine and Magnetic Identities
Photographs and Video by Matei Glass

The video installation and large format images that Matei Glass (Joseph Winterfeld, b.1956) presents at Play_gallery for still and motion pictures form a reflection on identities which cannot be mutually exclusive and memory when it becomes superimposed.

Matei Glass was born in Montreal, the son of Jewish refugees from Romania, Holocaust survivors whose support for Israel “could not be other than unquestioning.” Both his photographic travel journal The Other in Palestine, (Actar ed. 2003), and his 13 minute video “Magnetic Identities”(Metronom Foundation for Contemporary Art, 2004) form part of an ongoing project that began in 1997. While these images are mainly of Palestine and Palestinians, they are also somehow of their author as he attempts to redefine the other. “In a sense it is my need to fill in the blanks in my personal and collective memory that brought me to Palestine … I needed to walk through the mirror to see utopia’s otherside, its forgotten twin.”

Matei Glass’ images, installations and video work have been exhibited internationally in both solo and collective shows, as well as events such as A.R.C.O. International Fair of Contemporary Art in Madrid; Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles, France; PhotoEspaña; ARTCOLOGNE International Fair of Contemporary Art Cologne and, the “Loop” International Festival of Video Creation and the Contact International Image Festival in Toronto. His work is to be found in both public and private collections, notably: Metronom Foundation for Contemporary Art; Rafael Tous Collection Contemporary Art; The Royal Photographic Society of Spain; Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliotèque Nationale de France; Collection Audio-Visuel Francois Mitterand Bibliotèque Nationale de France; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada; The Walter Benjamin Foundation; The Consulate of Canada, Barcelona (permanent monographic exhibition) and the collection of John Berger, France.
In 2004 Magnetic was laureate for the Prix du Dialogue de l’Humanite, at the Rencontres Internationals de la Photographie at Arles in France.

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