UNDO
Thursday 07 June - Tuesday 11 July 2007
Opening on 7 June 2007, 19.00 - 22.00
EXTENDED until 18 July, 2007
UNDO, an exhibition about conflict, tension and bereavement
The exhibition will examine misunderstandings and preconceptions about the Middle East. Works by Mohamed Abdulla, Yasmeen Al Awadi, Ziad Antar, Oreet Ashery, Maja Bajevic, Ali Cherri, Nemanja Cvijanovic, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Sagi Groner, The Infinity Project, Dana Levy, Leigh Matthewman, Vesna Milicevic, Ruti Sela & Maayan Amir, Vladimir Tomic and Rachel Wilberforce will push boundaries this June at Dazed Gallery, London.
RACHEL WILBERFORCE
Mirage III, 2007
‘Undo’ it’s a word with the most implicit social connotations, in any given human situation it suggests varying degrees of trespass, regret, forgiveness and subsequent reconciliation, connotations that become even more acutely profound when the word is used to describe an art exhibition that deals in the arena of conflict, misrepresentation and human tragedy that is the 21st Century Middle East.
Such a title uncompromisingly poses the fundamental question as to whether art can realistically help to untie such an enormously tangled web considering that from every single violent death or misleading news broadcast there are ever widening concentric circles of sorrow, misunderstanding, hatred and anger that have a domino effect on generations of families and friends the world over; to even attempt to untie such deeply entrenched psychological knots of guilt and blame is surely to push Sisyphus’ mythical rock up an ever increasingly steep mountain.
However, ‘Undo’ at The Dazed Gallery, the second part of curator Predrag Pajdic’s integral and ambitious ‘In Focus’ initiative, intends to do just that, the exhibition features incredibly challenging work from artists based in Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Syria and Iran, all of whom are presenting works that have never been seen before in the West dealing in the searing personal subject matter of bereavement, conflict, tension and loss.
These works shall almost certainly change many held Western perspectives about the Middle East and hopefully they shall also go some way towards developing a greater sense of cultural understanding, empathy, reconciliation and essentially love, which in these times, according to the indefatigable Pajdic, is the only worthwhile undertaking of any true artist, for as Camus pointed out, "The struggle itself is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
John - Paul Pryor
Gallery Director/ Dazed Gallery
[email protected]
Dazed Gallery
Dazed & Confused Magazine
112 - 116 Old Street, London, EC1V9BG
UNITED KINGDOM
http://www.dazeddigital.com
This event is sponsored by