Anwar Hadid and Anonymous Art Activist Shine Light on Palestine

SCALE had published an exclusive interview of the anonymous street-artist-activist Cake$ and now for the first time, A Child Is Born In Bethlehem, an exhibition of the artist is shown at Palazzo Oddo Gallery in Italy. The show is curated by British-Palestinian art dealer, curator, activist and journalist Zayna Al-Saleh, and Italian art collector and curator Lorenzo Sibilla. The art exhibition shines light on the visual activism of Cake$ and brings his work to a larger audience. But more important than that is how the exhibition along with a pre-release screening of the documentary, Walled Of, written and directed by Vin Arfuso, and produced by popular Anwar Hadid, Kweku Mandela, Roger Waters brings the much-needed attention on Palestine, of the atrocities inflicted on Palestinian children who lose out on their childhood in the midst of the conflict of Occupied Territories.  

The vast array of work by anonymous artist Cake$ at the exhibition delivers his full repertoire to date; unseen photography of his street art, original stencils, linocuts and video art The title, A Child Is Born In Bethlehem, a 16th century hymn by Samuel Schiedt, sets the juxta positional tone: between divinity and profanity, past and present, perceived spaces and their actuality.

The photographs were selected from the Bethlehem archive of the artists’ of over 300 public artworks. On view are his earlier layered works – the black figures and motifs on white backgrounds — often coupled with monitory text such as ‘CAUTION/ Toys Of Any Kind Prohibited’ (2019), ‘Today’s Selfie Is Tomorrow’s Biometric Profile’(2019). He contextualises old master paintings and icon art to reframe the Palestinian story; his iteration of the infamous gesture between God and Adam in Michelangelo’s ‘The Creation of Adam’, or his coalescence of landscape and suffering that recalls Dali’s ‘The Persistence of Memory’.

He depicts the oppressive and unfettered military campaigns against children in black, often in perilous scenes or whilst attempting a playful resistance. Cake$ expresses that his ‘singular colour silhouettes means painting a collective mirror of a struggle for existence and survival. In this way, form is no longer conceived according to what it says but strictly according to what it does.

 

Cake$ has produced a series of linocuts for the exhibition, and instead of replicating images, he reworks them to suit the sterile walls of a gallery space. He says that he is redirecting his public art practice to smaller scale images, to situate his work at the very boundary between Bethlehem and a safe art institution. The film meanwhile references the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, owned and designed by British artists Banksy and the film underlines the importance of socially and politically engaged art.

 

The film follows Hadid, brother of models Bella and Gigi, as he explores Banksy’s hotel’s site-specific installations and storied halls with its head manager, Wissam Salsa. Later scenes feature five decades of archival footage, with the goal of combating the narrative of Palestinian struggle in Western media while also anchoring Yasser Arafat as a symbol of national identity.

Its style is incisive and diagrams key moments in the collective consciousness of Palestinians, but also tells a larger story of a peace that was almost had: the Oslo Accords. The iconic British street artist opened the Walled Off hotel in Bethlehem in 2017. Nestled against Israel’s separation barrier, which encloses occupied Palestine and annexes part of its land, Banksy has claimed it has the “worst view of any hotel in the world.”

The process of stencilling is documented throughout the show: there are photographs of the stencilling workshops that the artist led at Banksy’s Wall Mart (short for Wall My Art) in Bethlehem, which also served as his studio, along with original stencils from his last trip there. Since 2021, the artist has worked with animation, which according to him, blurs the boundaries between sculpture and street art, viewing his subjects as more rounded, ‘sculptural versions of his paintings’.

Vin Arfuso is an American filmmaker of Palestinian-Italian origin. Since 2016, Arfuso has worked in network TV, feature film, live entertainment, documentary, commercial work and shooting/editing digital content for prominent contemporary figures. Arfuso directed ‘Blood For Sale’ (2018), a short documentary starring Palestinian performance artist, Khaled Jarrar who sold vials of his blood on Wall Street in accordance with stock prices of the top US military defence contractors. As of late, he has been finalising the edit for the documentary, Walled Off, that he shot guerrilla style in the Occupied Palestinian Territories after his equipment was withheld upon arrival in Israel.

Anwar Hadid  is an American musician, model, activist and film producer of Palestinian-Dutch origin who has front lined social and fundraising campaigns. In 2018, Anwar and co-activists spearheaded the ‘Anti-Bait Truck Shoe Giveaway’ to counter the police sting, Operation Trailer Trap, and in 2021, he was a key part of the Congo relief effort, Give2Goma. He is carving out his own approach as an artist-activist within the creative industry; his track ‘Progression 101’ feat. Robbie Krieger (2020) brims with affecting references to Palestinian suffering or the exposure that will follow his on-screen appearance in the documentary film, Walled Off.

Later scenes feature five decades of archival footage, with the goal of combating the narrative of Palestinian struggle in Western media while also anchoring Yasser Arafat as a symbol of national identity. Its style is incisive and diagrams key moments in the collective consciousness of Palestinians, but also tells a larger story of a peace that was almost had: the Oslo Accords.

The iconic British street artist opened the Walled Off hotel in Bethlehem in 2017. Nestled against Israel’s separation barrier, which encloses occupied Palestine and annexes part of its land, Banksy has claimed it has the “worst view of any hotel in the world.”

The process of stencilling is documented throughout the show: there are photographs of the stencilling workshops that the artist led at Banksy’s Wall Mart (short for Wall My Art) in Bethlehem, which also served as his studio, along with original stencils from his last trip there. Since 2021, the artist has worked with animation, which according to him, blurs the boundaries between sculpture and street art, viewing his subjects as more rounded, ‘sculptural versions of his paintings’.

Vin Arfuso is an American filmmaker of Palestinian-Italian origin. Since 2016, Arfuso has worked in network TV, feature film, live entertainment, documentary, commercial work and shooting/editing digital content for prominent contemporary figures. Arfuso directed Blood For Sale (2018), a short documentary starring Palestinian performance artist, Khaled Jarrar who sold vials of his blood on Wall Street in accordance with stock prices of the top US military defence contractors. As of late, he has been finalising the edit for the documentary, Walled Off, that he shot guerrilla style in the Occupied Palestinian Territories after his equipment was withheld upon arrival in Israel.

Anwar Hadid  is an American musician, model, activist and film producer of Palestinian-Dutch origin who has front lined social and fundraising campaigns. In 2018, Anwar and co-activists spearheaded the ‘Anti-Bait Truck Shoe Giveaway’ to counter the police sting, Operation Trailer Trap, and in 2021, he was a key part of the Congo relief effort, Give2Goma. He is carving out his own approach as an artist-activist within the creative industry; his track ‘Progression 101’ feat. Robbie Krieger (2020) brims with affecting references to Palestinian suffering or the exposure that will follow his on-screen appearance in the documentary film, Walled Off.

All Images Courtesy the Curator Zayna Al Saleh