Emily Jacir in Venice, Palestine

Earlier this month Emily Jacir won the Golden Lion for artists under 40 at the Venice Biennale. I've been fascinated by the subversiveness and the urgency of Jacir's work since I first saw it at NYC's Debs & Co. a number of years ago. My friend Choire Sicha was half of that gallery, so on the occasion of Jacir's Venice award I asked him to share his favorite Jacir story.

Choire Sicha: "Working with Emily was crazy-difficult -- and not because she was a diva like some artists, though she was immensely thoughtful about the display and context of her work. [My partner] Nick Debs booked her first New York show with us for May 2003 and we were planning it during 2002, during some of which she was teaching and living in Palestine.

That year the Israeli army, having already bombed Ramallah by air, came into [the] town and raided houses, attacked people on the streets, cut off the electricity, and took over the local media. The emails we got from Emily (when she could!) were unbelievable. Mostly I remember us being in New York and our concerns were like, 'We need to get prints for collectors who want them delivered before their next dinner party' and she was like, 'Okay, I'll get back to you in a couple of days, we're not able to really leave the house and we're staying out of bullet range of the windows.'

I may have never seen a piece of art as remarkable as the secret video recordings she made of her daily commute through the checkpoints just to get to work. [Shown here is a still from that piece: 2002's Crossing Surda (a record of going to and from work).]I remember her emailing us about how the soldiers had seized her passport and harassed her on her way to work. That she produced such clear conceptual work under those conditions is hard to believe. (And to think I used to complain about how there was no good public transportation to the West Chelsea gallery district!) She was such a compulsive traveler -- having grown up stateless, in a sense, it was almost like she was more comfortable in transit. Some days I wouldn't know what country she was in. She's amazing."

Related: Jacir's current NYC gallery, Alexander and Bonin, has lots of images of her work.