MOATAZ NASR, WAEL SHAWKY, HALIM AL KARIM, ADEL ABIDIN, NAVID AZIMI SAJADI, NAWRAS SHALHOUB, NIDA SINNOKROT, RAMAZAN BAYRAKOGLU
Tawassol Contact
Nawras Shalhoub, Moi et toi – Video still, 3.11 Minutes
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OPENING: Thursday, 18 June 2009 – h 6.00 pm
20 June 2009 – 22 August 2009
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Curated by GAIA SERENA SIMIONATI
The recent worldwide spread of a virus, H1N1, possibly caused by human error, has offered the chance to reflect and being aware of the disease, causing a contagious fright and therefore the consciousness of death. Moreover it gave us the opportunity to think about the present contact, closeness and its proximity with the chameleon meanings, both under an artistic and aesthetic point of view. As I invited eight Middle East artists: the Egyptian Moataz Nasr and Wael Shawky, the Iraqi Halim al Karim and Adel Abidin, the Iranian Navid Azimi, the Palestinian Nawras Shalhoub and Nida Sinnokrot, the Turkish Ramazan Bayrakoglu, this makes me choose a strong, suitable Arabic word, “Tawassol” to create a link, a word whose meaning not only has several nuances, but also offers ways of explanation according to the context.
Ithassal, which can be translated to a sense of a geographic or a communication nearness, as in Tawassol, that is a secret and subterranean link. Tawassol, as in mosques, means to get in touch with “the above” to obtain something. When somebody prays, he gets in touch, so the word becomes a spiritual one. Tamas is a skin contact, transitory, quick, and possibly sexual. So, contact can be both physical and geographic. Ihtekak is when from “nearness” springs contrast and friction. The proposed theme – very up to date – is “hot” mainly in the Middle East, but also in Europe where the close proximity with the different and the “other” is often cause for clashes, quarrels and pain as well as exchange and enrichment. The theme involves the thought of all the artists in their own different ways, experiments, media and aesthetic sensitivity. Contact can lead to disease, love and death, to paraphrase Shakespeare! Contact has always belonged to man who, being a social animal, cannot live without it.
Aids, viruses, bombs, wars are the consequences of contact that man can’t avoid. There is contact also in the extraterrestrial UFO phenomena. George Adamski brought into existence the so called “contactee” movement that dealt with the approach from humanoids towards human beings which many denounced as collective hallucinations, psychic projections or self-persuasions. Allen Hayeck drew up a scale of types of encounterswhere the contacted, the ones who had been abducted, reported a close encounter of the fourth type. Contact is also a physical phenomenon. There is physical exchange of warmth. Hence warmth is the macroscopic manifestation of energy from a physical system to another2, because of a temperature difference. Furthermore contact determines a permanent or variable deformation, which causes molecular vibrations on a microscopic scale. Because of the loosening of the energy links which matter is kept together with. Hence there’s an increase in the atoms and speed with the consequent production of heat. Contact causes body overheating. Nawras Shalhoub, one of the Palestinian artists who exhibits in Italy for the first time, experiences this very heat/contact transfer, on his own hands.
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Nawras Shalhoub, Out, 2006/07 – Video, 10.41 Minutes
Nida Sinnokrot, West Bank Butterfy – Kite Project, 2009
David Azimi Sajadi, Sospensione Inerzia, 2009
Moataz Nasr, Propaganda: Do not attempt to use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The coalition owns high tech satellite dishes that allow the allied forces to monitor the preparations and transportation process of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Unit leaders will be charged for not reacting, 2009 – Embroidered tissue, 42.9 x 72 inch
Wael Shawky, Al Aqsa park, 2009 – Pigment print, 41×51 cm . Video still, Animation video, DVD loop, 10 Minutes
Halim Al Karim, UNTITLED from URBAN WITNESS series, 2002 – Photograph on Lambda Print, 54 x 118 inch
Ramazan Bayrakoglu, Untitled from the serie 1 km, 2009 – Satin cloth pasted on canvas, 36 x 55 inch
Adel Abiding, Foam, 2007/2008 – Video installation, video still, DVD loop, 04.25 Minutes