Ali Cherri
Trembling Landscapes (Beirut) | 2014
Lithographic print and archival ink stamp. 4 x 72 x 102 cm. Ed.3/7 (+ 2AP)
Trembling Landscapes are black and white lithographs of aerial views of Beirut, Damascus, Algiers, Tehran and Erbil with red stamps that mark the polar coordinates of the fault lines running underneath these cities. The maps are reminiscent of well-known photographs of cities destroyed in the Second World War, or more recent image filmed by hovering drones, but without a clear reference about whether the given city is in the state before or after the catastrophe. What they offer though is retrieval of memory that we share and too often suppress, as well as a possibility to transform this information into a metaphor for the unrest that envelops those cities ceaselessly.
Reference AC-WP-2014-A
Biography of the artist
Born in Beirut, Lebanon. 1976
Works and Lives in Beirut and Paris
Ali Cherri is a video and visual artist based in Beirut and Paris. He is currently conducting a research with the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) and the Deutsche Aarchäologische Institut (DAI) on the place of the archeological object in the construction of national historical narratives.
In his videos, drawings and sculptural installations, Ali Cherri dissects the geopolitical situation in Lebanon and its neighbouring countries with a distanced as well as involved look. Fragile basements and a history of earthquakes in the region seem to reflect the perpetual crises. Digital manipulations create an intense and distressing confusion between the real and the virtual. Cherri seeks new perspectives, different points of analysis between fall and rise, archaeology and the conquest of space – from Pipe Dreams to Bird’s Eye View.
His recent exhibitions includes Desires and Necessities at MACBA (Spain, 2015), Lest the Two Seas Meet at Warsaw Museum of Modern Art (Poland 2015), Mare Medi Terra at Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma (Spain, 2015), Songs of Loss and Songs of Love at Gwangju Museum of Art (South Korea, 2014).
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