[spectre] (fwd) Salloum exhibition opening at the Western Front

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: JSalloum at aol.com
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:41:07 EDT
Subject: Please post: Salloum exhibition opening at the Western Front



everything and nothing and other works from the ongoing video 
installation, 'untitled', 1999-2004

An exhibition by Jayce Salloum at the Western Front.
Opening, Friday, April 16, 8:00 PM
with a reception upstairs in the Lux.
Exhibition continues until Fri. May 21, 2004
Regular gallery hrs: Tues-Sat 12-5
303 East 8th Ave.
Vancouver
(604) 876-9343
exhibitions at front.bc.ca
(publication available with essays by
Trevor Boddy & Mireille Kassar)

untitled is an ongoing multi-channel video installation continuing 
his series of projects addressing social and political realities, 
representations, and enunciations, focusing on borders, nationalisms, 
and movements (shifts, transitions and interstitial space/time). The 
installation includes seven videotapes, featuring: untitled part 1: 
everything and nothing, an intimate conversation with Lebanese 
ex-resistance fighter Soha Bechara; untitled part 2: beauty and the 
east, a videotape made while traveling through the former Republic of 
Yugoslavia shortly after the NATO bombing; and untitled part 3: 
footnotes to the book of setbacks and untitled part 3b: (as if) 
beauty never ends.., a two tape component featuring footage of 
Palestinian refugees camps in Lebanon and interviews with two 
refugees living there since 1948. In this installation Salloum 
explores conditions of living between polarities of culture, 
geography, history, and ideology.

Salloum's installation was at the heart of the controversy over the 
attempted cancellation of the exhibition, "The Lands within Me: 
Expressions by Canadian Artists of Arab Origin", which opened at the 
Museum of Civilization (Gatineau), Oct. 2001. After viewing the tapes 
in the installation the directors of the museum attempted to 
’Äúindefinitely postpone’Äù the exhibition. With a large 
international public outcry the Museum was forced to open and present 
the exhibition as originally planned. Following the closing of the 
exhibition March 2003 the Museum reneged on it's commitment for an 
international tour and closed down the Mid-East/South-West Asian 
department in its entirety.


Since 1975 Salloum has been working in installation, photography, 
mixed media and video, as well as curating exhibitions, conducting 
workshops and coordinating cultural projects. He has lectured 
internationally and exhibited extensively throughout the Americas, 
Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, at institutions including The 
Museum of Modern Art, New York; American Fine Arts; Artists Space; 
National Gallery of Canada; Canadian Museum of Contemporary 
Photography; Canadian Museum of Civilization; New Langton Arts; Los 
Angeles Center for Photographic Studies; Long Beach Museum of Art; 
Walker Arts Center; The Wexner Center; YYZ Artists Outlet; A Space; 
Contemporary Art Gallery & Western Front, Vancouver; Optica Gallery; 
Oboro; Dazibzo; Mois De La Photo ˆÝ Montrˆ©al; Miyagi Museum of 
Contemporary Art; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Kunstlerhaus 
Bethanien; Werkleitz Bienniel; Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume; 
American Centre, Paris; Cinematheque Franˆßaise; Institute du Monde 
Arabe; Espace Lyonnais d'Art Contemporain; Shedhalle; Rote Fabrik; 
Rotterdam International Film Festival; Singapore International Film 
Festival; British Film Institute; Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina 
Sofia; Museo de Arte Contemporˆ°neo, Seville; CaixaForum, Barcelona; 
and Thˆ©atre de Beyrouth. In 2003 he represented Canada at the 8th 
Havana Biennial.

---

untitled part 1: everything and nothing, the video from which the 
exhibition takes its title, consists of a conversation with 
ex-Lebanese National Resistance fighter and icon, Soha Bechara. 
Rather than question her about her experience of capture, 
imprisonment and torture, Salloum conducts an intimate, if 
problematic, conversation in her tiny Paris dorm room, itself hardly 
bigger than her former cell.  He asks her, off camera in stilted 
French, not about the hard facts but about her impressions and 
thoughts.  Bechara’Äôs intelligent and positive answers in Arabic 
build a captivating alternative portrait of a woman who would be 
labeled a terrorist (in terms defined by the West).  Bechara and 
Salloum’Äôs interaction, along with the combination of open-ended 
questions and assertive filmic devices, such as  extreme close-ups 
and quick zooms, remind the viewer of the camera’Äôs presence, as 
well as both the subject and the artist’Äôs positions.

untitled part 2: beauty and the east, continues in the attempt to 
concretize notions of interstitiality, addressing issues of 
nationalism & the nation state, alienation, the refusal & 
construction of political identities, ethno-fascism, the body as 
object & metaphor, agents, monsters & abjectness, subjective 
affinities, and objective trusts. Material was videotaped while 
leaving home, arriving at, and moving through the former Yugoslavia 
(stopping in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Skopje) 
shortly after the NATO bombing in 1999. The subjects come from a 
range of constituencies; migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, 
students, workers, and cultural producers recounting experience, 
locating sites, shifts, events, and the issues at stake. Associated 
ambient imagery adds to form specific histories of locations, and 
locations of histories at the intersection of cultures in these 
particular places and times.

untitled part 3a: footnotes to the book of setbacks
untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends..
Currently a two tape section. The main monitor (3a) features excerpts 
from conversations, with two elder Palestinians that have been living 
in refugee camps in Lebanon since 1948. They recount journeys of 
exile, dispossession, and the present context of their lives. A 
superimposed ambient tape (3b) displays a variety of visual material 
and ambient sound including orchids blooming and plants growing 
superimposed over raw footage from post massacre filmings of the 1982 
massacre at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon. Cloud 
footage, Hubbell space imagery, the visible body crosscuts, and 
abstract shots of slow motion water, add to this reflection of the 
past, its present context and forbearance. The part 3 tapes work 
together to create an essay on dystopia in contemporary times. An 
elegiac response working directly, viscerally, and metaphorically 
while commenting on the condition of permanent temporariness.



further info:
www.111101.net/Artworks/JayceSalloum/
www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?SALLOUMJ
www.civilisations.ca/cultur/cespays/images/pay2_20p5.jpg
www.lot.at/politics/contributions/s_jayce1.htm
www.wwvf.nl/2001/0newarabvideo.htm