PROFILE Images - Courtesy of the artist. Writer - Ari Akkermans, writer and art critic.
Alfred Tarazi: Dear Madness Collages from a vault of memories How do we rearrange photographic knowledge
the grand narrative of the war, towards an order of
streams of history are revealed, a reality that
in an event of historical cessation? We are not
introspection, closer in time and personal in voice.
supersedes all fictions and annihilates itself. Using
talking here about a mere interruption in the flow
Reconstructing the historical events that took place in
her European passport, Madness flees the country,
of the everyday, but a condition of dissolution. In
Lebanon 2005-2006 between the Cedar Revolution
and in the subsequent demolition of her house,
his practice, Lebanese artist Alfred Tarazi has always
and the end of the July War from a first person,
another layer of story-telling is revealed.
been captivated (hostage, you may say) by the
the artist is not only putting together fragmentary
metaphysical transgressions of the Lebanese Civil
recollections from the war, but rearranging his
Throughout the 24 scenes of this almost cinematic,
War—it’s not just about violence, but the liquefaction
own vault of memories. Dear Madness is a fiction
historical painting, Tarazi invokes the unwritten
of reality—and turns to representation with an almost
inside the archive, and the metaphor for a reckless,
architectural history of the city, not as a tool to
cynical question: Is there a memory more reliable
turbulent and unattainable love, Beirut herself: “This
enhance his narrative but rather as a general
than a photograph? It is in fact here that we have
is your story, Madness, this is your city and this is
structure. It is through enclosure around physical sites
the makings of madness. A convoluted, impossible,
your house.”
and their history that the story becomes tangible:
unbearable history reduced to a body of photography; overwhelming, partisan and interminable.
“The 8th of March [was] born on Riad El Soloh In the panorama Cara Matta (2019), on show in
square, and the 14th of March on Martyrs Square.
Art Dubai last spring, a kind of classical historical
But those two squares have things in common. First
But instead of reversing the process or intervening
painting in scenes leads the viewer through a series
they both contain statues, and second both statues
the archive, Tarazi’s method is that of a conservator;
of encounters between madness and himself, that
were made by the same Italian sculptor, Renato
how to restore the chronology? In his restoration
intersect and overlap with key events in this period.
Mazzacurati.” Photography, architecture, urbanism
work, photographs and archives reappear as
The assassination of Rafic Hariri (among others),
and war, all in equal measures part of the legacy of
para-text through juxtaposition, and emerge as
the establishment of the opposing camps that still
Modernity in the Arab world.
footnotes to themselves—image, text and fiction
divide the Lebanese political spectrum, March 8
in boundless composition. Out of this chaos, the
and March 14, or the deadly war with Israel that for
A modernity without restraints or limits, a
absurd and the ambiguous merge into the role-
the umpteenth time, saw parts of Beirut destroyed.
simultaneous laboratory and museological
playing of historiography, leaving us at the mercy
Is Madness the metaphor for Beirut, or vice versa?
showcase. For Tarazi, an artist always skeptical of
of singular, unexplained photographic acts. His
images and politics, and often laconic in language,
signature collaged panoramas–an early ancestor of
In this epic of love, and well, madness, the fictional
the photograph is no longer a medium but an early
cinema—are a phantasmagoria of truncated images,
details are as important as the true events on account
ruin. It is capable of immortalizing the unimportant,
unevenly distributed, wounded archive and dystopian
of their hagiographic nature. The assassination of
thus clogging the pores of history’s path, at the end
mythology; references tear themselves off the flesh,
Hariri on St. George Bay in 2005 merges with the
of which there’s only non-reason without apocalypse:
melting into the whole.
legend of how St. George, the patron saint of Beirut,
“This is her story, Madness, this is her city and this is
slayed the dragon in the medieval tale. Unlike the
her house. This is the ruin in which we made vows,
And then, there’s “Dear Madness...”, where the
Greek epic that birthed St. George, in Cara Matta
this is the square in which we sang for freedom and
observer is both subject and object of inquiry. In
there’s no obvious resolution or hero; it is only
this is the war we fought together. It has all vanished.
more recent years, Tarazi has distanced himself from
because of its historical accuracy that mysterious
It is all gone.”
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