-:-- / -:--
-:--
Alfred Tarazi, 1980
The Lovers, 2020
Giclee print on canvas, wooden box, steel frame, glass
150.0 x 150.0 x 20.0 cm (59.1 x 59.1 x 7.9 in) (Including the frame)
more
Born in Beirut in 1980, in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, Alfred Tarazi is an artist that belongs to the postwar generation and whose work scrutinizes the traumatic events of its aftermath at all levels: political, geographic, and social. Using archival and historic records, magazines, books, posters, and newspaper archives he analyzes, retells, and processes the collective memory of Lebanon.
The Lovers is an evolving multimedia installation exploring the Lebanese civil war through the personal stories of two presumably irreconcilable figures - that of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Ali Hassan Salameh and Georgina Rizk, the first and only Arab winner of the Miss Universe beauty pageant in 1971. How their worlds of glamour and radical revolution coincided is unknown. Yet Tarazi's study of their relationship helps us understand to wider movements shaking the Arab world at its core in the 70s, with Beirut at its epicenter: the Palestinian revolution which Salameh epitomized and the sexual liberation movement advocated in the world of popular culture of which Rizk was its poster child. The ramifications of both movements can still be felt across the region today.
In this work, Tarazi uses two scrolls to narrate the story through a montage of images taken from their lives, reflecting the wider sociopolitical realities and popular culture of the time. The mechanism allows viewers to wind up the scrolls to unfold in any direction, harking to the traditional advertising screens. Salameh and Rizk's relationship presents another side of the conflict, embodying the resilience of love and the hope it carries with it.
This is a demonstration of the activation of The Lovers.
... read more
Born in Beirut in 1980, in the midst of the Lebanese civil war, Alfred Tarazi is an artist that belongs to the postwar generation and whose work scrutinizes the traumatic events of its aftermath at all levels: political, geographic, and social. Using archival and historic records, magazines, books, posters, and newspaper archives he analyzes, retells, and processes the collective memory of Lebanon.
The Lovers is an evolving multimedia installation exploring the Lebanese civil war through the personal stories of two presumably irreconcilable figures - that of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Ali Hassan Salameh and Georgina Rizk, the first and only Arab winner of the Miss Universe beauty pageant in 1971. How their worlds of glamour and radical revolution coincided is unknown. Yet Tarazi's study of their relationship helps us understand to wider movements shaking the Arab world at its core in the 70s, with Beirut at its epicenter: the Palestinian revolution which Salameh epitomized and the sexual liberation movement advocated in the world of popular culture of which Rizk was its poster child. The ramifications of both movements can still be felt across the region today.
In this work, Tarazi uses two scrolls to narrate the story through a montage of images taken from their lives, reflecting the wider sociopolitical realities and popular culture of the time. The mechanism allows viewers to wind up the scrolls to unfold in any direction, harking to the traditional advertising screens. Salameh and Rizk's relationship presents another side of the conflict, embodying the resilience of love and the hope it carries with it.
This is a demonstration of the activation of The Lovers.
... read more