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Save the Date: Subversion
PREVIEW: 13th April 2012
A unique group show of new and recent contemporary art that explores and rethinks modern Arab identity.
Curated by Omar Kholeif
Subversion features work from eleven emerging and established artists who use autobiographical narratives amalgamated with fiction, references to popular culture and subversive parody to express the dichotomies they face as they perform multiple roles in a society which is frequently represented and (mis) represented–contorted and mediated to the outside world.
Rather than conforming, the artists approach the various social masks they are expected to wear with a sense of humour – making reference to the duplicitous performances of their everyday lives.
Spanning an array of techniques including installation, video, photography and sculpture, the work illustrates fragments of the distorted imagination that often preoccupies the Arab world.
Highlights include emerging Gaza artists and filmmakers Tarzan and Arab, presenting their award-winning Gazawood project (2010), including short film Colourful Journey and a series of striking cinema poster pastiches of imaginary movies from different genres. Originating from a region that has not had a functioning cinema since the 1980s and heavily relies on satellite TV and illegal DVD copies, the works strongly reflect the twins’ interest in and passion for film.
In A Space Exodus (2009), Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour adapts a segment of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, providing it with new, Middle Eastern context by positing the idea of the first Palestinian in space. Originally developed as part of the A Space Exodus installation, Subversion will also feature Sansour’s Palestinauts (2010) and three preliminary sketches for the Nation Estate project, a sci-fi photo series conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for nationhood at the UN.
For more info, please visit here.
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Subversion, curated by Omar Kholeif
Marwa Arsanios · Sherif El-Azma · Wafaa Bilal · Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige · Khaled Hafez · Emily Jacir · Larissa Sansour · Tarzan and Arab · Sharif Waked · Akram Zaatari 
Cornerhouse is delighted to announce Subversion, a unique group show of new and recent contemporary art which explores and rethinks modern Arab identity.
Twelve emerging and established artists use autobiographical narratives amalgamated with fiction, popular culture and subversive parody, to express the dichotomies they face as they perform multiple roles in a society which is frequently represented to the outside world in a contorted and mediated manner.
Spanning an array of techniques including installation, video, photography and sculpture, the artists collectively illustrate fragments of the distorted imagination that often preoccupies the Arab world, uncovering the contrasts of existence in a disputed political region. But instead of conforming, they approach the various masks they are expected to wear with a sense of humour whilst referencing to the duplicitous performances of their everyday life.
Emerging Gaza artists and filmmakers Tarzan and Arab will present their award- winning Gazawood project (2010), including short film Colourful Journey and a series of striking cinema poster pastiches of imaginary movies from different genres (illustrated above left). Originating from a region that has not had a functioning cinema since the 1980s and heavily relies on satellite TV and illegal DVD copies, the works on display strongly reflect the twins’ interest in and passion for film.
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Art and Subversion: An Interview with Omar Kholeif
Subversion. Featuring work by Akram Zaatari, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Khaled Hafez, Larissa Sansour, Marwa Arsanios, Sharif Waked, Sherif El-Azma, Tarzan and Arab, and Wafaa Bilal.Curated by Omar Kholeif. Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, UK. 14 April – 5 June 2012, preview/symposium 13 April 2012.
[Omar Kholeif is Curator of Subversion, a large-scale exhibition and public program, which runs until 5 June 2012 at Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK. More about Omar Kholeifhere; follow him on Twitter here.]
Anthony Alessandrini (AA): What was the idea behind this show, and what made you decide to curate it?
Omar Kholeif (OK): The spark for Subversion clicked in my head in 2009. I had just come back from a frustrating summer in Egypt trying to find some material in a number of different deteriorating film archives, and when I returned to the UK everyone was buzzing about a show in London that had lots of so-called Middle Eastern (and Arab) artists in it. It was a show entitled Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East at the Saatchi Gallery in London. This triggered all sorts of emotions within me and many of the artists with whom I was working, both from within and from outside of the Arab world. At that point I felt, and I still feel much the same way now, that Western institutions were still talking about artists from particular parts of the world using the same rhetoric that originated from post-colonial writers in the 1990s. In a sense, we had never moved beyond outdated modes of identity politics. Instead, I wanted to talk about what it means to be an individual in a post-internet, post social media human condition.
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No Comments » | Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
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