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The wounds are deadly
ARTS & CULTURE AGENDA LE BAN O N THEATER
‘Vessels’ Theater Monnot, Monnot Street, Achrafieh Until Feb. 20, call for times
01-202-422 Sawsan Bou Khaled’s play deals with the problems of language between a man and a woman, both trying to find meaning in their existence. In English, with Arabic subtitles. MUSIC
‘Joumana Mdawar’ Allegria, Jeita roundabout, Jeita Feb. 14, 10:30 p.m.
03-941-571/03-682-100 The legendary Lebanese singer Joumana Mdawar performs with accompaniment by Marc Abou Naoum.
‘Habaneras, Milongas, Tangos’ American University of Beirut, Assembly Hall, Bliss Street, Hamra Feb. 17, 8 p.m.
05-464-120 In collaboration with the Cervantes Institute and the Embassy of Uruguay in Lebanon, the Spanish Embassy invites you to a piano recital by Uruguayan pianist Polly Ferman. FILM
‘The Trial of Oscar Wilde’ Beirut Art Center, off Corniche an Nahr, Jisr al-Wati. Feb. 18, 8 p.m.
01-397-018 Part of the BAC’s event “Expecting the Images,” Christian Merlhiot presents his cinematographic work dealing with the Arabic translation of the trial of Oscar Wilde, a trial in which the author was accused of gross indecency. In French with English subtitles. ART
‘The Architect’s Head’ Q Contemporary, Beirut Tower, Ground floor, Zeitoune Street, Downtown Until March 3, call for times
03-300-520 An installation by the French sculptor and architect Guillaume Credoz.
‘Image Works’ Beirut Art Center, Jisr al-Wati, Off Corniche an-Nahr Until April 15, call for times
01-397-018 In partnership with the GoetheInstitut Lebanon, German artist and filmmaker Harun Farocki presents this solo exhibition on his major video installations and recent productions.
‘Interior Lights’ Alice Mogabgab Gallery, Achrafieh Street, Karam Building, Achrafieh Feb. 22 to March 17, call for times
01-204-984 Born in Saida, Lulu Baassiri exhibits her collection of pastels on velvet canvases in which sunflowers, pigeons and roses are her main painted subjects.
R E VI E W
Nikoo Tarkhani’s mixed media work is a visceral confrontation with the motifs of tradition
T
By Ali Ettehad
EHRAN: In “Nightmare on Elm Street,” American director Wes Craven introduced Freddy Krueger, an awful character who feeds on fear. Only by consuming his victims’ fear does Freddy find the strength to trap and kill them. In Craven’s film, the victims’ fear makes them complicit in the antagonist’s ghoulish behavior, who then makes their fear a hundred times worse. A similar principle appears to be at work in “There is a charge for the eyeing of my scars” at Tehran’s Silk Road Gallery. Comprised of 11 self portraits and a video work, this solo exhibition by Nikoo Tarkhani suggests that anyone who agrees to old rules and traditions – or takes part in or agrees to live within their framework – supplies the fuel for the giant machine that, with all its lovely or horrible aspects, devours him. Tarkhani’s paintings portray the artist in a floral world in which seemingly harmless little birds peck at her limbs and body, at times appearing to be tearing at her veins like worms from the soil. For about four centuries, renderings of flowers and birds were a familiar motif in Iranian traditional painting. Such images have connoted domesticity, safety and redemption. In “There is a charge for the eyeing of my scars,” these motifs are a symbol of tradition. The contemporary artist (who comes from a traditional background) here suggests that, in spite of their enchanting appearance, some parts of tradition leave deadly wounds upon the body of every single aspect of the community. The irony at work here is especially poignant for those who live this kind of life and who are closely attached to the motifs Tarkhani wields here. Faced with the brutal activity of those little birds, the artist appears passive, as if her neutral attitude were a way of preparing herself for scarification. This juxtaposition of this artist passivity, on one hand, and the violence being done (by a creature associated with security in traditional Iranian art) has a provocative impact on the informed spectator. Tarkhani’s works – both “There is a charge for the eyeing of my scars” and “This is not a woman,” her 2008 series – have three common characteristics. First, Tarkhani’s work all uses, and somehow displaces, collective memory, which makes it paradoxical and surprising to the spectator. Second, all of these works deal with the body. The nude self-portraits that comprised “This is not a woman” and the wounded bodies in “There is a charge for the eyeing of my scars” use a common vocabulary. Third, Tarkhani’s works all have a Special to The Daily Star
One of the Tutankhamun statues.
Major treasures stolen from Egypt’s museum By Riad Abu Awad One of Tarkhani’s untitled canvases.
common autobiographical quality. In both her paintings and her video and digital works, Tarkhani shows the audience her personal affairs as a sample of social experience. While the new work makes use of the classical motifs of birds and flowers, “This is not a woman” utilized
Iraqi artist’s body rejects Doha implant
NEW YORK: A New York University professor says the tiny camera inserted into the back of his head for a yearlong art project has been temporarily removed due to a risk of infection. In the meantime, Wafaa Bilal says he will wear it around his neck. The interactive piece beams images to a website and a Persian Gulf museum. The Iraqi-born artist teaches at
NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He had minor surgery last Friday to remove one of the posts holding the camera to his head because his body was rejecting it. He hopes the wound will heal quickly so he can reattach the camera. The art piece was commissioned by the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. – AP
Reveries Orientales The Little Soldier of Smyrna
Until Feb. 20, 11 a.m.
01-999-313 Syrian artist Adam Sabhan exhibits paintings and sculptures dealing with the amalgamation of chaos and order.
blue tiles. These not only reflect a memory of classical Persian architecture. They also refer to the artist’s personal memories of the bathroom in her childhood home – the place that for years bore witness to her routine nudity. In this new series each and every
Until March 26, call for times
01-562-778 An exhibition by three young Lebanese talents: Rasha Kahil, Hiba Kalache and Alfred Tarazi.
Just a thought Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Image courtesy of Souk An Najjarin
BEIRUT: Gerard Avedissian’s creation “Le petit soldat de Smyrne” (The little soldier of Smyrna) (100 x 70 cm, mixed media), is part of his exhibition “Reveries Orientales: Nouvelles Creations” at Souk An-Najjarin in Saifi Village. The show is up until March 12.
wound is a symbol of the artist’s personal experience of tradition. In this way, Tarkhani’s work uses a common formal codex. Tarkhani’s performance video “Metamorphoses” is a thematic complement of the canvases, and may be seen to be a solution for the predicament they frame. The first episode of a trilogy called “Song of songs,” the work centers on a close up of the artist’s face, framed with long black hair. Apparently staring into the exhibition hall, the artist slowly and calmly peels doll-like, plastic skin off her face. Blood rushes from beneath the layer of superficial skin to the accompaniment of her breathing and other audio effects. Having scratched and peeled-off her skin before the camera, Tarkhani shows us her bloodied, newly exposed skin. After some moments of staring, as if mesmerized, into the camera lens, a teardrop emerges from the corner of her eye and makes a trail down her fresh, bloody flesh. It is as if, by peeling-off her dolllike skin, and allowing fresh cells to grow, the artist is demonstrating that she’d prefer to put an end to those wounds that don’t kill and leave only a scar. A new human emerges from the previous cocoon, one whose scarifying ceremony will attract new birds and more peeling.
Exploring the traditions of Oriental dress By Sarah Shard
PARIS: The Orient has long held a fascination for Westerners, conjuring up exotic images from historic lands where few travelers ventured before the advent of trains and steamboats. As a child in the 1950s French couturier Christian Lacroix recalls the inscription on a monument in the port of Marseilles, “Gateway to the East” was enough to fire his imagination and later inspire his designs. Now “L’Orient des Femmes” (Women in Orient), an exhibition at Quai Branly Museum in Paris, which he has helped curate, celebrates oriental women through some 150 examples of their traditional costumes, with their lavish embroidery and vibrant colors, from northern Syria to the Sinai peninsula. Agence France Presse
Embroidery was a skill transmitted from mother to daughter
‘In the Trenches’ The Running Horse, Karantina
CAIRO: Several ancient treasures were stolen from the Egyptian Museum, including a statue of King Tutankhamun, when looters broke in during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, authorities said Sunday. The pieces include a gilded wooden statue showing the boy pharaoh being carried by a goddess and parts of another statue of him harpooning fish, said Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass. Looters broke into the museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Jan. 28 when anti-Mubarak protesters drove his despised police from the streets in a series of clashes and torched an adjacent ruling party building. Museum director Tarek al-Awadi said looters went on a rampage, shattering 13 display cases and at least 70 artifacts. He added that curators were still carrying out an inventory to determine the extent of the losses. The missing pieces include a limestone statue of Pharaoh Akhenaten holding an offering table, a statue of Queen Nefertiti making offerings and a sandstone head of a princess from Amarna, a vast archaeological site in central Egypt. Also missing were a stone statuette of a scribe from Amarna and 11 wooden shabti statuettes of Yuya, a powerful courtier from the time of the 18th Dynasty, which ruled along the banks of the Nile more than 3,000 years ago. Awadi added that a heart scarab – an amulet placed on the chest of the mummy to ensure the heart was not removed – belonging to Yuya was also missing. Soldiers outside the museum Sunday were tight-lipped about the alleged theft. A lieutenant colonel who declined to give his name said only: “Two or three things were stolen, little things like rings.” Troops have arrested two or three suspects and were searching for others, the officer said, adding that the looters had broken in through a window. Founded in 1858 by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, the museum contains more than 100,000 artifacts, including the world renowned – and reputedly cursed – treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb. The best known artifact is Tutankhamun’s gold funerary mask, which stares out from a case on the first floor of the museum. The 18th dynasty monarch, better known as King Tut, ruled Egypt in the 13th century BC. In his statement, Hawass said an investigation has been launched to find those behind the theft, adding that “the police and army plan to follow up with the criminals already in custody.” The museum standing on the main protest square was protected by army tanks and briefly by a cordon of citizen volunteers during 18 days of anti-government rallies that ousted Mubarak. The theft recalls the even more disastrous looting of Baghdad’s National Museum in April 2003 following the U.S. invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein, when thieves stole thousands of pieces and smashed several others. Agence France Presse
From Tarkhani’s performance video “Metamorphoses.”
‘Sculptures and paintings’ Mark Hachem Gallery, Salloum Street, Mina al-Hosn
Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) Lebanese-American artist, poet and writer
THE D AILY STAR monday, february 14, 2011
Curator Hana Chidiac, herself Lebanese, told AFP they deliberately avoided city dress, too influenced by the Ottoman Empire, and concentrated on rural women and bedouin, who in the early 20th century were still wearing the clothes of their ancestors. Embroidery goes back to the earliest antiquity. One of the most moving exhibits is the dress of a 13th-century girl, whose mummified body was found in a Lebanese cave, with its bib neckline and sleeves in red cross stitch. It was a skill transmitted down the generations from mother to daughter. Almost as soon as a girl could hold a needle they would work together on her trousseau, which could contain as many as 13 richly stitched dresses as well as belts, veils and headdresses, even make-up pouches. Examples of dowry chests are scattered through the exhibition and can even be opened for closer scrutiny.
”There is a charge, for the eyeing of my scars,” an exhibition of video and paintings by Nikoo Tarkhani is up at Tehran’s Silk Road Gallery.
The quality of the wedding dress was almost as important as the beauty of the bride. Every village had its own distinctive styles and motifs, which were a source of local pride. Some, like Ramallah and Beit Dajan, became well known hubs, while Bethlehem was the acknowledged fashion capital. Colors were significant too. Indigo and black were believed to ward off the evil eye, even protect against scorpions, while red was credited with boosting fertility. Styles varied enormously from region to region. Jordan was particularly rich in diversity and originality. In the north women wore black satin dresses embellished with bright embroidery, while in the far south they favored vivid silk and headbands covered in tightly-sewn silver coins. In the area of the ancient cities of Al-Salt and Kerak, there was a puzzling fashion for outsize dresses as much as 3.5 meters in length. An old black-and-white film of a woman dressing resolves the enigma, showing how the excess material is folded up and secured round the waist with a belt, forming an outer skirt that doubles as a handy carrier and can even be transformed into a natty papoose for carrying a baby. Jordan’s Queen Rania still wears traditional costume to help keep it alive, says Chidiac. Most of the exhibits in the show are from the early part of the 20th century, when the materials used were mostly cotton and linen and garments were hand-embroidered with silk thread. Today’s equivalents, Chidiac notes, made in synthetics with machine embroidery, are a poor second. “When I was growing up in Lebanon,” she continued, “my father used to take me to choose material for a frock and then a seamstress would make it up for me. I used to complain and ask why I couldn’t have a readymade dress like my classmates. How wrong I was! I’d love to have that choice now.” The exhibition is open until May 15.
Iran sets up office to handle media, culture offenses
TEHRAN: Iran’s official news agency says the judiciary has set up a special prosecutor’s office for offenses related to media and culture. The move signaled new restrictions on journalists and artists, many of whom supported widespread protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009. Irna news agency said Sunday the new department would operate under Tehran’s chief prosecutor and that a special court would also be established. The 2009 protests erupted after Ahmadinejad was re-elected in a vote opposition members say was marred by massive fraud. Authorities prosecuted many journalists, bloggers and filmmakers on security charges related to the post-election turmoil. – AP