Focus on Ali Cherri

Conference by Amanda Abi Khalil

18.04.2018
At Saradar Collection Offices

How can the experience of violence‭, ‬wars or catastrophe be expressed‭, ‬translated or embodied‭? ‬This question which has been at the center of Ali Cherri’s artistic instigations tackles the idea of transmission of a lived experience beyond representation‭. ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

His work challenges our ways of seeing and interpreting the type of knowledge unearthed by historical narratives and artifacts‭; ‬in relation to the present‭. ‬Temporality in his works is never linear‭, ‬discontinuity is a tool to question perception and matter‭ (‬archives‭, ‬taxidermied animals‭, ‬archeological artifacts‭, ‬sand and dust‭) ‬often encapsulate and embody shifted readings of‭ ‬‘’violence’’‭. ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

This conference will focus on Ali Cherri’s practice through a dialogue between his latest projects and commissions and his earlier works from the Saradar Collection‭. ‬‬‬

Ali Cherri (1976) is a filmmaker and visual artist living in Beirut and Paris. His recent solo exhibitions include Somniculus at Jeu de Paume, Paris and CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2017, Dénaturé at Galerie Imane Farès, 2017, From Fragment to Whole at Jönköpings läns museum, Sweden, 2017, Taxonomy of Fallacies at Sursock Museum, Beirut, 2016. He was a shortlisted artist for the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2018.

Amanda Abi Khalil (Lebanon) is an independent art curator based in Beirut. She is the founder of Temporary Art Platform, a curatorial platform that aims to shift artistic and curatorial discourse towards social and contextual concerns in Lebanon through residencies, research projects and public art commissions. www.temporaryartplatform.com