Akram Zaatari
Joana Hadjithomas
Khalil Joreige
Khaled Hafez
Larissa Sansour
Marwa Arsanios
Sharif Waked
Sherif El
Azma
Tarzan and Arab
Wafaa Bilal
Omar Kholeif
The exhibition explores and rethinks modern Arab identity. Spanning an array of techniques including installation, video, photography and sculpture, the artists illustrate fragments of the distorted imagination that often preoccupies the Arab world, uncovering the contrasts of existence in a disputed political region.
Artists: Akram Zaatari, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Khaled Hafez, Larissa Sansour, Marwa Arsanios, Sharif Waked, Sherif El-Azma, Tarzan and Arab, Wafaa Bilal
Curators: Omar Kholeif
A unique group show of new and recent contemporary art that explores and rethinks modern Arab identity.
Subversion features work from eleven emerging and established artists who use autobiographical narratives combining fiction, popular culture and subversive parody to express the divisions they face as they perform multiple roles in a society which is frequently represented to the outside world in a contorted and mediated manner. Spanning an array of techniques including installation, video, photography and sculpture, the work illustrates fragments of the distorted imagination that often preoccupies the Arab world.
Emerging Gaza artists and filmmakers Tarzan and Arab will present their award-winning Gazawood project (2010). It’ll include a series of striking cinema poster pastiches of imaginary movies from different genres, and a short film Colourful Journey, which will be screened in a pop-up cinema in Gallery 3. Originating from a region that has not had a functioning cinema since the 1980s and heavily relies on satellite TV and illegal DVD copies, the works strongly reflect the twins’ interest in and passion for film.
In A Space Exodus (2009), Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour adapts a segment of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, providing it with a new, Middle Eastern context by positing the idea of the first Palestinian in space. Originally developed as part of the A Space Exodus installation, Subversion will also feature Sansour’s Palestinauts (2010) and three preliminary sketches for the Nation Estate project, a sci-fi photo series conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for nationhood at the UN.
A unique film programme of contemporary Arab and Lebanese cinema programmed to accompany Subversion. Including films from a generation of filmmakers whose memories of The Lebanese Civil War remain omnipresent, including Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Rania Stephan, Georges Hachem, Nadine Labaki, and a UK Premiere from Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, the season highlights some of the most critically acclaimed films recently produced in the Arab region.
Film season: From Sat 14 April
www.cornerhouse.org/arab-lebanese-cinema
Funded by Manchester City Council, Arts Council England and AGMA.
Media Partner: Contemporary Practices. Resource areas curated by 98 Weeks.
Symposium: Fri 13 April
Friday 13 April, 11–16:30
More informations: www.cornerhouse.org/symposium
Communications Manager: Charlotte Pedley charlotte.pedley@cornerhouse.org
Media & Communications Officer: Elisa Ruff elisa.ruff@cornerhouse.org
Prewiev Fri 13 Apr 2012 18:00 - 21:00
Galleries 1, 2 & 3
Cornerhouse
70 Oxford Street Manchester M1 5NH
Mon - Closed, Tue - Sat 12:00 - 20:00, Sun 12:00 - 18:00
Entrance free