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Transposed upon the Wall, in Suleiman Mansour's Photoshop print, is Michelangelo's hand of God and hand of Adam reaching out toward one another-only separated by a chasm, not an inch, as on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. Here separation is a way of driving two entities further and further apart.
Mansour's print is part of the "Three Cities Against The Wall" exhibit that opened Nov. 9 in Ramallah, Tel Aviv and New York. Artist Seth Tobocman, the show's U.S. organizer, chose the New York venue: ABC No Rio, a tenement gallery on the Lower East Side that evolved from a squatters' building into a center for art and activism.
"We knew that ABC was very independent and wouldn't allow themselves to be prevented from doing the show," he explained.
The idea for the show grew out of Tobocman's meeting with Tayseer Barakat in Ramallah four years ago. Israeli artists were not included in the show's original plans, but when Tobocman discussed the exhibit with Steven Englander, the ABC No Rio director thought it would be a good idea to have Israeli participation in the project to broaden its political scope.
"I wrote Tayseer a proposal for 'Three...