Salloum exhibition opening at the Western Front

[JSalloum at aol.com]

everything and nothing and other works from the ongoing video installation, 
'untitled', 1999-2004

An exhibition by Jayce Salloum at the Western Front.
Opening, Friday, April 16, 8:00 PM
with a reception upstairs in the Lux.
Exhibition continues until Fri. May 21, 2004
Regular gallery hrs: Tues-Sat 12-5
303 East 8th Ave.
Vancouver
(604) 876-9343
exhibitions at front.bc.ca
(publication available with essays by
Trevor Boddy & Mireille Kassar)

untitled is an ongoing multi-channel video installation continuing his series 
of projects addressing social and political realities, representations, and 
enunciations, focusing on borders, nationalisms, and movements (shifts, 
transitions and interstitial space/time). The installation includes seven videotapes, 
featuring: untitled part 1: everything and nothing, an intimate conversation 
with Lebanese ex-resistance fighter Soha Bechara; untitled part 2: beauty and 
the east, a videotape made while traveling through the former Republic of 
Yugoslavia shortly after the NATO bombing; and untitled part 3: footnotes to the 
book of setbacks and untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends.., a two tape 
component featuring footage of Palestinian refugees camps in Lebanon and 
interviews with two refugees living there since 1948. In this installation Salloum 
explores conditions of living between polarities of culture, geography, 
history, and ideology.

Salloum's installation was at the heart of the controversy over the attempted 
cancellation of the exhibition, "The Lands within Me: Expressions by Canadian 
Artists of Arab Origin", which opened at the Museum of Civilization 
(Gatineau), Oct. 2001. After viewing the tapes in the installation the directors of the 
museum attempted to “indefinitely postpone” the exhibition. With a large 
international public outcry the Museum was forced to open and present the 
exhibition as originally planned. Following the closing of the exhibition March 2003 
the Museum reneged on it's commitment for an international tour and closed 
down the Mid-East/South-West Asian department in its entirety.


Since 1975 Salloum has been working in installation, photography, mixed media 
and video, as well as curating exhibitions, conducting workshops and 
coordinating cultural projects. He has lectured internationally and exhibited 
extensively throughout the Americas, Europe, East Asia and the Middle East, at 
institutions including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; American Fine Arts; 
Artists Space; National Gallery of Canada; Canadian Museum of Contemporary 
Photography; Canadian Museum of Civilization; New Langton Arts; Los Angeles Center for 
Photographic Studies; Long Beach Museum of Art; Walker Arts Center; The Wexner 
Center; YYZ Artists Outlet; A Space; Contemporary Art Gallery & Western 
Front, Vancouver; Optica Gallery; Oboro; Dazibzo; Mois De La Photo à Montréal; 
Miyagi Museum of Contemporary Art; Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Kunstlerhaus 
Bethanien; Werkleitz Bienniel; Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume; American 
Centre, Paris; Cinematheque Française; Institute du Monde Arabe; Espace Lyonnais 
d'Art Contemporain; Shedhalle; Rote Fabrik; Rotterdam International Film 
Festival; Singapore International Film Festival; British Film Institute; Museo 
Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville; 
CaixaForum, Barcelona; and Théatre de Beyrouth. In 2003 he represented Canada at the 
8th Havana Biennial.

---

untitled part 1: everything and nothing, the video from which the exhibition 
takes its title, consists of a conversation with ex-Lebanese National 
Resistance fighter and icon, Soha Bechara.   Rather than question her about her 
experience of capture, imprisonment and torture, Salloum conducts an intimate, if 
problematic, conversation in her tiny Paris dorm room, itself hardly bigger than 
her former cell.   He asks her, off camera in stilted French, not about the 
hard facts but about her impressions and thoughts.   Bechara’s intelligent and 
positive answers in Arabic build a captivating alternative portrait of a woman 
who would be labeled a terrorist (in terms defined by the West).   Bechara 
and Salloum’s interaction, along with the combination of open-ended questions 
and assertive filmic devices, such as   extreme close-ups and quick zooms, 
remind the viewer of the camera’s presence, as well as both the subject and the 
artist’s positions.

untitled part 2: beauty and the east, continues in the attempt to concretize 
notions of interstitiality, addressing issues of nationalism & the nation 
state, alienation, the refusal & construction of political identities, 
ethno-fascism, the body as object & metaphor, agents, monsters & abjectness, subjective 
affinities, and objective trusts. Material was videotaped while leaving home, 
arriving at, and moving through the former Yugoslavia (stopping in Ljubljana, 
Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Skopje) shortly after the NATO bombing in 1999. 
The subjects come from a range of constituencies; migrants, refugees, asylum 
seekers, students, workers, and cultural producers recounting experience, 
locating sites, shifts, events, and the issues at stake. Associated ambient 
imagery adds to form specific histories of locations, and locations of histories at 
the intersection of cultures in these particular places and times.

untitled part 3a: footnotes to the book of setbacks
untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends..
Currently a two tape section. The main monitor (3a) features excerpts from 
conversations, with two elder Palestinians that have been living in refugee 
camps in Lebanon since 1948. They recount journeys of exile, dispossession, and 
the present context of their lives. A superimposed ambient tape (3b) displays a 
variety of visual material and ambient sound including orchids blooming and 
plants growing superimposed over raw footage from post massacre filmings of the 
1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon. Cloud footage, 
Hubbell space imagery, the visible body crosscuts, and abstract shots of slow 
motion water, add to this reflection of the past, its present context and 
forbearance. The part 3 tapes work together to create an essay on dystopia in 
contemporary times. An elegiac response working directly, viscerally, and 
metaphorically while commenting on the condition of permanent temporariness.



further info:
www.111101.net/Artworks/JayceSalloum/
www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?SALLOUMJ
www.civilisations.ca/cultur/cespays/images/pay2_20p5.jpg
www.lot.at/politics/contributions/s_jayce1.htm
www.wwvf.nl/2001/0newarabvideo.htm

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