Go straight to the main content



murmurART

art advisory - looking for something specific or help in finding work by early career artists. contact info@murmurart.com
Review Nov 25 2009 « | »
The Third Eye at Selma Feriani An exhibition exploring the conceptual development of a group of young Lebanese artists

Anja Savic

How apt a title for an exhibition that makes you wish you had a third eye-not because it is large, for it consists of a mere handful of works by five artists-but because this handful is a selection of art so subtle in its complexity, so graceful in its simplicity and quite simply cool in its freshness, that you can't help but yearn you had more than two eyes to take it in with.

However, the more you look at the works, the more you realize that the "third eye" in the title is less likely to be referring to one belonging to the viewer, and instead be pointing to the artists-five young and upcoming individuals who make up what may be considered the third generation of contemporary Lebanese artists.

Departing radically from the first generation who lived through the civil war as adults and produced art driven by the anger and pain of the immediate experience, and closely on the heels of the second generation who adopted a milder and more conceptual approach, these are works produced by five people who watched the civil war as children, and have now grown into artists searching for a way to digest and express those experiences.

So while war does remain an elemental theme, it plays a rather more muted role-muted like the piano in Ziad Antar's poignant video installation "La Marche Turque," in which fingers are filmed playing Mozart's famous composition, but no sound is heard save for the wooden thumps of the keys being pressed down.

Indeed, war associated notions such as disenchantment, displacement, and dislocation are still present in the works-as in Johanne Issa's portraits of Lebanese women in which the top and bottom halves of the bodies are disconnected-but these sentiments appear more as faint echoes of a distant war than as immediate, pained reactions to it.

War, these works seem to say, or to whisper, need not serve only to destroy, but to create, and to relate. And what the works in this exhibition do create, is a relation not only to each other, but to the art world, and to the world world, for the subtlety employed in the expression of these possibly "war inspired" sentiments results in art works that are relevant and applicable beyond both cultural and temporal border.

Is not escape something we all could yearn for? It is rather a good thing that the little paper boats Lina Hakim has cut out of a Lebanese novel as part of one of her pieces are too little to climb into, for this is an exhibition you won't want to leave.

Ausra Linkeviciute

War is not the primary subject matter explored in the artworks of the five Lebanese artists at Selma Feriani but it certainly echoes. What the works have in common is silence. It's as if the voices silenced by the war are trying to speak out but struggle to do so. Deeply personal artworks focus on identity, deformity and displacement. Time is fluid and space - transitory.  

Lina Hakim's book installations are marked by a playful lightness of touch. From the pages of a book delicate paper boats are floating away and square shaped building blocks glisten with red light. The artist attempts at liberating the words but at the same time highlights the impossibility of doing so.    

This desire for liberation and a profound sense of entrapment also seem to stand side by side in the work of Johanne Issa. Serious faced women stare out of the two large scale photographs which deform they bodies by cutting them in half. And where are they? They seem to be trapped in that unidentifiable space of in between.    

Nadim Asfar also turned to photography in his collage To Photograph. Images of simple every day scenes shot from the artist's balcony come together in a new world of abstraction. Highly cinematic, graphical, dynamic work is a rhythmic display of cars, colours, people and reflections. Time and space are in flux and the eye finds itself following the patterns and constantly shifting focus from one frame to the next.

Similarly represented Pascal Hachem's photo-collage portrays the artist himself wearing an increasing number of hospital masks. The absurdity that characterizes his work is also evident in his installation inviting the audience to cut out their own tongues. It should be noted that the installation is interactive, though this might not be so obvious by viewing alone.    

Sound is also muted in Ziad Antar's video pieces, such as The Turkish March. Mozart's Alla Turca  is recited with no music but the thud of piano keys being pressed. The fact that the screen is situated in what appears to be the kitchen area of the gallery also adds to the intimacy and irony of the work.  

There seems to be something incomplete about the show as a whole - not necessarily in the wrong way, as the viewer is invited to project a whole multitude of personal narratives. The five artists are not stating anything - they seem to be searching. Perhaps for an identity, or a personal expression, or a voice.

The Third Eye, curated by Constantino D'Orazio, is at Selma Feriani Gallery from 15 October - 5 December. Selma Feriani's website is here.

    Comments

  • Captivating write-up! Thanks for the insight:) Posted by: Mphanga

Add Comments

  • CAPTCHA Image