Shelly Nadashi’s Objects of Value: Commodity and Puppetry in Brussels

Ellen Feiss's essay for Afterall examines Shelly Nadashi's 2014 exhibition 'A Hidden Quiet Pocket' at Établissement d'en face in Brussels. The exhibition features a twenty-minute video of the same name, charcoal drawings of backpacks, and papier-mâché masks. Nadashi, trained at the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem, uses puppeteering logic to explore the co-constitution of commodities and subjects. The video follows Nadashi as a masseuse/property speculator who massages a client while discussing rent, property features, and food, spiraling into surreal incantations. The work references Arjun Appadurai's politics of value and critiques neoliberal capitalism's commodification of labor and housing. The essay draws parallels to Shakespeare's Shylock to discuss financial subjectivity and anti-Semitism. The exhibition ran from July 17, 2014.