ABOVE: works by Avner Bar Hama, a Tel Aviv art professor and sculptor. The current Israeli disengagement plan is inspiring conservative artists like Bar Hama, says the L.A. Times.

If the old adage that pain is good for art holds true, then the rainbow of suffering that is the middle east must be churning out some doozies. The L.A. Times says that the Israeli disengagement plan in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of Jewish settlers are currently being relocated—with varying degrees of resistance—by the Israeli government, has galvanized conservative Jewish artists, who are responding with critical works concerned with themes of home, freedom, and the fickle vagaries of political geography.

Politics aside—we’re just a bunch of WonderBread goyim, after all, unqualified and uninclined to kvetch about the legislative twitches and jerks of God’s Chosen People—there is something curiously stirring about right-wing art, much like finding a Komodo Dragon under your car: rare, kind of mesmerizing, and not totally welcome. The Times says that right-wing artists are getting more recognition as the political landscape churns, noting that Israel is “a country in which culture is dominated by the left.” Uh, dudes: culture is dominated by the left everywhere. That’s why they call it culture. Zing!

LINK: Los Angeles Times > Pro-Settler Israelis Stake Out a Place in Art