Three`s a crowd but `4` is just about right

12
ARTS & CULTURE
THE DAILY STAR
AGENDA
LE BAN O N
FILM
Vincent Dieutre
Centre Culturel Francais,
Damascus Road
May 20, 8 p.m.
+961 1 420 200
A selection of Dieutre’s
documentaries, starting
with his six-minute short
“Paris-Beirut,” followed
by “Entering Indifference,” and the one-hour
feature “Wasted Rome.”
‘Histoire(s) du Cinema’
Beirut Art Center,
Jisr al-Wati
May 20, 7 p.m.
+961 1 397 018
Jean-Luc Godard’s video
essay receives a rare
showing. In French with
English subtitles.
MUSIC
Klaus Baessler
Assembly Hall, American
University of Beirut
May 20, 8 p.m.
+961 1 353 228
Baessler, a piano teacher
from the Hanns Eisler
Conservatoire in Berlin,
performs a program that
includes Beethoven,
Schubert and Schuman.
ART
‘Writing Art’
Janine Rubeiz Gallery,
Raouche
Opening May 20, 6 p.m.
+961 1 868 290
Subtitled “Trends in contemporary Iranian art
since the Saqqakhaneh,”
the exhibition explores
the interaction of Western
trends with Iranian artists.
Just a thought
Four things greater than all
things are – Women and
Horses and Power and War.
Rudyard Kipling
(1865 - 1936)
British writer
wednesday, may 20, 2009
R E VI E W
Three’s a crowd but ‘4’ is just about right
Video and sound art pieces at Beirut Art Center reflect a wide range of practices among local artists
Jim Quilty
Daily Star staff
EIRUT: Choice is the
object of the consumer
economy. Choice is
what’s on offer these
days at the Beirut Art Center,
where, upon entering, two distinct shows force spectators to
turn right, or left.To the right of
you is “4,” an exhibition of
Lebanese video and sound art.
When it opened back in
April, the most striking thing
about this show, at least before
spending time with any of the
pieces, was auditory. Its deployment in this corner of the
space made “4” a cacophonous, self-devouring thing.
That this exhibition has subsequently become more circumspect reflects the mutability of
individual works as much as
gallery pragmatism.
“4” is comprised of video installations by Kinda Hassan and
Mounira al-Solh and a pair of
sound art pieces by Cynthia Zaven and Charbel Haber.The disparity among these works suggests something of the range of
contemporary practices among
local artists as well as the possibilities of these media.
Hassan’s
three-channel
video installation “Ashoura –
Untitled” (2007) takes up the
seemingly ironic co-existence of
the sacred and the profane in the
rituals of communal devotion.
The ritual in question is the
commemoration of the death of
Imam Husayn, grandson of the
Prophet Mohammad, at the
hands of Umayyad forces during
the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD.
This event, central to the founding narrative of Shiite Islam, is
here filmed in the southern
Lebanese village of Nabatiyya,
home to both Amal and Hizbullah, the country’s two principle
Shiite political groupings.
Hassan’s practice is straightforward documentary. A camera cuts back and forth from a
young man walking through the
village – alternatively chatting
with his pals and participating
in the chest-thumping practice
– to the ambient sociability of
these sorts of gatherings, to an
interview with a female academic talking about the ritual.
The young man’s devotions
are sweaty, working him into
B
enough of a lather to go barechested. This disrobing may be
read to be both pragmatic and
doubly performative,since it allows him to impress the young
women in the crowd with his
body as well as his piety.
The installation’s treblechanneling allows Hassan to simultaneously project tableaux
of performance, audience and
Hassan’s work sets
out to undermine
the stern premises
of sacred practice
the female authority, whose
analysis underlines that the
gallery spectator is not witnessing a freak occurrence but fairly common social practice.
If Hassan’s work sets out to
use documentary to undermine
the stern premises of sacred
practice, Mounira al-Solh’s installation “The Sea is A stereo”
(2007- ) is a playful subversion
of documentary practice. The
work is termed a “photo and
video” installation. At this
point the photo component –
three color snaps of an anonymous man’s hands, against the
background of a Beirut beach,
showing a fistful of antique
photos to Solh’s camera – still
seems an afterthought.
The latest incarnation of
Solh’s ongoing video series,
“The Sea is A stereo” adopts a
joking tone to conduct a serious
The cast of of Mounira al-Solh’s ongoing video series “The Sea is A stereo,” which playfully undermines conventional documentary.
segments are juxtaposed with
their remarks upon what they
see and the artist’s representations of them. Solh abandons
the amusing voice-over now,but
rather than allowing the men to
speak for themselves, their remarks – sometimes amusing, at
times stiflingly banal, at others
bristling with significance – are
given in writing.
Here, the artist’s representational practice further unhinges
arranged for piano and cello
and performed – these excerpts
are arrayed among other discrete sounds.
It is housed in a (relatively)
isolated room, empty save
three randomly arrayed stools.
A ceiling tile has been removed, through which a lone,
blue, indirect light shines.
The composition itself might
best be termed counterpoint in
multiple voices. The piece carries the listener through gauzy
aural topographies. School
children sing. A vocalist practices scales. A record player’s
needle rides an LP’s dead
space.A bomb detonates. Keys
Haber’s purpose is
to maintain the
hoax ‘that this city
is inhabited’
Kinda Hassan’s “Ashoura - Untitled” (2007) takes up the sacred and the profane in communal ritual.
interrogation of documentary’s
representational-factual premises. Her subjects (or objects) are
a circle of Lebanese men of varying ages, classes and regional
backgrounds who regularly
swim in one of Beirut’s still-undeveloped stretches of Mediterranean seafront.
The two-channel video is
projected on opposite walls, as
if for difficulty of consumption.
Those familiar with Solh’s work
will recognize the channel facing the door as a version of
“Paris without a Sea.” In this energetic and amusing piece, the
off-frame artist interviews her
informants – in various stages of
undress, wearing diving masks
and so forth – against a brightly
colored indoor backdrop.
You hear Solh assault them
with rapid-fire questions in
Lebanese Arabic and French –
“Why do they call you that?”
“When and where did you
learn to swim?” “What is the
color of the sea?” “Who is the
best swimmer?” “What is your
relationship to Halls cough
drops?” Her subjects’ voices remain inaudible when they respond. Rather, Solh speaks
their responses, in synch.
The artist’s surreal mediation
(dubbing, diving masks and the
like) in this nominally documentary practice and the brief,
idiosyncratic anecdotes her inquiries elicit from the men
about their relationship to their
bodies as well as to the sea, lend
the work a comic texture.
The counterpoint to these
scattershot interviews is a much
longer video entitled “Let’s
Learn to Swim Then!” The work
shows segments of the men at
the beach, pretending to not notice they’re being filmed. These
the informants from what purports to be their voices.There is
no way to confirm whether the
written responses attributed to
them are real – whether Solh
dutifully showed them her
rushes, recorded their responses and disclosed them unadulterated – edited or manufactured.All pretences of accuracy
are erased beneath the unusual
transparency of the documentarian’s bad intentions.
“4” is the fruit of several interdisciplinary
workshops
sound artist and computer programmer Tarek Atoui has conducted in Lebanon since 2006.
The show’s four pieces were selected and produced by Atoui
and BAC co-directors Sandra
Dagher and Lamia Joreige. It
represents the second edition
of the European Cultural Foundation’s Almost Real program,
which since 2006 has been
funding and supporting visual
and multidisciplinary work
among Lebanese artists.
The exhibition’s two sound
installations are as different as
their video counterparts.
The most accomplished
sound piece, and best realized
as practice, is Cynthia Zaven’s
26-minute-long, eight-channel
sound installation “Octophonic Diary” (2007-2008).
“Octophonic Diary” is
meta-composition comprised
of archived aural traces and deployed to represent the absent
subject.Though it has long passages of conventional composition – with individual notes
are inserted into a lock.A ticking clock resolves into a clacking manual typewriter.
There is something risky in
baby-talk playback, of course.
Fortunately, Zaven is in control
of her sampling, arraying the
sounds in an organic rather
than manipulative or contrived
manner. Strewn among archive
fragments of performance, they
echo through the darkness that
inspires or conspires against the
creative act.
Charbel Haber’s “When No
Body’s Around (The Cables between us)” (2007-2008) is a
work for eight electric guitars.At
the show’s opening, the “composition” thundered though
speakers in one room of the
gallery – making it difficult to
hear the rest of “4” – while, in
the BAC’s screening room,
primitive machines “silently”
bowed the guitars.
The piece’s stated purpose is
to maintain the hoax “that this
city is inhabited,” making it allusive of both the conceptual
concerns of an older generation
of Lebanese artists and the more
mundane apocalypse of contemporary youth emigration.
That was then. Within a few
days, Haber’s machines had revealed themselves so primitive
as to cease working. Nowadays,
“No Body’s Around” has a
recording of the machines’
“composition” playing in a loop
while the dead guitars lie about
like museum pieces.
Like Calvin and Hobbes’
classic “snow art” sequence,
then, it appears Haber’s work is
inviting “the viewer to contemplate the evanescence of life.”
“4” sound and video works by Charbel Haber, Kinda Hassan, Mounira
al-Solh and Cynthia Zaven is up at
the Beirut Art Center until June 9.
HOROSCOPE
Aries (Mar. 21 – April 19)
Taurus (April 20 – May 20)
Gemini (May 21 – June 21)
You could be viewed as the proverbial
headless chicken today. On top of
that, convoluted explanations are likely to be given to you. Try to stay focused, despite all of the confusion.
There are decisions to be made. It
doesn’t seem possible to do one thing
without affecting everything. Heartstrings are played by a special friend
who needs you to know their situation.
You clearly need to go back over old
ground before pushing forward. Among
the many decisions to be made, one involves whether or not to get rid of a large
item that’s been around for years.
Cancer (June 22 – July 22)
Leo (July 23 – Aug. 22)
Virgo (Aug. 23 – Sept. 22)
It’s clear you are being stretched.
Someone new to your scene requires
a very different kind of handling. This
doesn’t seem to be about confidence,
more about laying good foundations.
It would help if you could be a fly on
the wall. That’s probably not an option. Questions of trust and integrity
are raised about someone you consider to be as close as a sibling.
You need hard facts but someone is being economical with the truth. At the
very least, you could find useful information in a book, which itself turns into
something of a guide.
Libra (Sept. 23 – Oct. 22)
A recently made contact comes to you
for advice and clarification. It would
be all too easy to be drawn into discussions about desires which change
before the end of the month.
Scorpio (Oct. 23 – Nov. 21)
Look out for a dispute today. What a
person thinks they’re saying and what
you hear are two different things. This
could turn into a struggle about who
knows what is best for whom.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 21)
Financial discussions are necessary,
probably because a piece of equipment
is not functioning as it should. Technology is an issue in another sense: You may
be required to learn a few tricks.
Capricorn (Dec. 22 – Jan. 19)
Aquarius (Jan. 20 – Feb. 18)
Pisces (Feb. 19 – Mar. 20)
The wait for someone to make a decision tests your patience. Yet this also
provides excellent opportunity to gather facts. It might help to create a “red
book” with all the data you will need.
Once again, issues around fashion and
decoration surface. It might help to ask
a neighbor for their opinion. Part of
the issue could be lighting and the positioning of photographs and pictures.
Practicalities have your attention and uncomfortable truths need to be faced. It
might seem to you that someone has
practiced deception. Actually, it’s possible they’ve been trying to protect you.