GAZA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
– ON LAND AND AIR

KENT KLICH

20 MARch – 22 MAy 2021

 

“The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes.” – Kurt Vonneguts, Slakthus 5.

GZA  was the airport designation to Yassir Arafat International Airport in Gaza that was inagurated in 1998. The air tower and radiostation was eradicated in 2001 by Israeli military in connection with the second intifada. In 2002 the landing strip was also destroyed. Since then the airport has been closed. Inspired by the outtake from Slaughterhouse 5 Kent Klich tells the airports story backwards. From todays ruins, pieces of mosaic that used to decorate the buildings, videomaterials from a working airport to building plans and plans of future airlines. GZA becomes a work about the Palestinian dream to lift their isolation and move freely.

More information can be found in the Folder.

About the artist

Kent Klich, was born in Sweden in 1952 and currently lives in Denmark. He studied psychology at the University of Gothenburg and photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. He joined the photo agency Magnum Photos in 1998 until 2002. Kent Klich has received international recognition with his project about Beth, a Danish sex worker whose life he has chronicled over the past thirty years, resulting in three books and several exhibitions. Other noted projects include El Niño (1999), about homeless children in Mexico City, and Children of Ceausescu (2001), about HIV-positive children in Romania’s orphanages. 

Klich combines in his work photojournalism with art, documentary and political activism, spanning many different expressions and formats such as conceptual color photography, B/W snapshots, video installations as well as fragments and other forms of documentation directly collected on site. Collaboration is at the heart of Klich’s method. He involves the people whose living conditions he is addressing, but also experts, writers and activists contribute to his projects. 

Artists’ talk:

(Kent Klich together with Muhammad Shehada)