beirut blues

joint projects...

 
Since 1981, Israeli and Palestinian artists have collaborated on a series of joint projects protesting the occupation and working towards a joint future based upon equal, secure and free co-existence, in which the culture of one people enriches and reinforces that of the other, rather than seeking to overwhelm or subjugate it.

From their outset, the joint Israeli-Palestinian exhibitions have sought to promote the following principles:

1.    Opposition to the occupation;
2.    Two states for two peoples;
3.    A shared Jerusalem
4.    Support for non-violent means of resolving the conflict.

In defiance of the painful situation in which we presently find ourselves - violent, oppressive and seemingly without a solution - and in a direct challenge to the renewed threat of population transfer, re-occupation and terror, we, as artists are determined to persist in our efforts to promote peaceful dialogue, towards a shared peaceful future for both peoples.

In June 2002, a group of Palestinian and Israeli artists - operating in conjunction with the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Coalition - began work on a portfolio of original screenprints designed to promote these ideals.  The entire portfolio of 35 prints - referring to 35 years of occupation - was printed at the Har-El Print Workshop in Jaffa, and is to be exhibited in Israel, Palestine and internationally.

http://www.harelart.com/35.htm

Laila Shawa

Above Laila Shawa's two-panel "Children of War, Children of Peace" is of the "Word into Art" exhibition, at the British Museum. Today was the last day exhibiting in London.

objection

The photographic artist Majdi Hadid is displaying this wednesdat 16th of August an exhibition at the Qattan foundation. His work is a unique blend of images that "combine to make moving stories and statements about our lives" (as a friend described!).

the blues of mazen

THE WAR IS OVER

they are saying

how many
times
did
i hear
this sentence?

Check his blog full of gems:
http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/

words into art

Straight from the Haaretz, a review of the exhibition at the British Museum and the description of an encounter between Yitzhak Laor and Elias Khoury....

The letter wants to become a painting

_{By Yitzhak Laor}

What is now called "painting" existed in all sorts of cultures, sometimes with a religious or quasi-religious function. Today, however, when people use the word painting (i.e., art), they mean Western painting. The great debt of Modernist art to far-off colonies is well known: African art for Picasso, for example, and Moroccan wall-paintings for Matisse. In the background are those who perceived the connection between Modernism - with all its accomplishments, passions and recognition that not everything can be represented - and the historical phase of Western domination on what previously had not been considered part of "the whole world.

Homeland Lost

Exhibition at Al Ma'Mal. Alan Gignoux has actually worked extensively with refugees in Lebanon. Alan Gignoux carried out a similiar project like that  of Imaginarius, the same summer. He gave children throw away cameras, while Imaginarius also taught the basic concepts of photography through the use of pinhole photography. However the aims and objectives were very similar. The photos can be seen at: http://gignoux.demonweb.co.uk/exhibition/index.html

More information on his work there can be found at http://www.gignouxphotos.com/

Raz Mesinai

Worth checking him out, and especially the music and beat found at http://www.razmesinai.com/mp3/ladyman-lady_dem_crazy.mp3. This would be fantastic in a lantern festival in Jerusalem....

"Raz Mesinai (aka Badawi) was born in Jerusalem in 1973. His first two decades were spent in frequent transit between Jerusalem and New York City, where he became immersed in both the worlds of traditional Sufi, Jewish, and Bedouin music, and the dub / hip-hop and dance music scenes of the eighties and early nineties in New York City. He eventually became deeply involved in the avant-garde, downtown music scene of NYC, performing, improvising, and leading his own ensembles on percussion, piano and sampler.
Mesinai's electronic and electro-acoustic music exists at the crossroads of composition, sound design and modern studio production. His acclaimed recordings under the moniker Badawi, and as one half of the seminal duo Sub Dub (with John Ward), are difficult to classify, but have been called hybrid electronica/dub/percussion/avant-garde compositions. Since 1999, Mesinai has been releasing music under his own name as well, including three releases on John Zorn's "Tzadik" label.

Mesinai has collaborated with many of New York's top musicians, including Eyvind Kang, Mark Dresser, Marc Ribot, Mark Feldman, John Zorn, Shelley Hirsch, Elliott Sharp and Zeena Parkins, among others. His work has been commissioned by the Lincoln Center Festival, the Jerome Foundation and the American Music Center. In 2001, "Soldier of Midian" (ROIR) received an award from the Ars Electronica festival. In 2002, Raz was a featured artist in the "Next, Next Wave" festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and opened for Nubian master musician Hamza El Din at Lincoln Center. In 2005, following his developing interest in visual narrative, storytelling and the promotion of Anarchism in music, Mesinai composed his Opera "Myth of Nations", which premiered at The Kitchen in NYC."

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: www.razmesinai.com

Beirut's rebel architect

May 21, 2006
Middle-East Pieces

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
For three days, Bernard Khoury and I had been navigating Beirut's matrix of decayed historic buildings, glittering new residential towers and noisy construction sites. As the sun began to set over the city, we stopped in front of a 1970's-era Brutalist office tower designed by Khoury's father, a prominent member of Beirut's Modernist vanguard whose practice flourished in the boom years that preceded Lebanon's 15-year-long civil war. The chiseled concrete form seemed to expand as the light shifted, its facade looming over the street, as if to express the confidence of the period when Beirut could lay claim to being the Paris of the Middle East.

Turner dances in Ramallah

The controversial Turner Prize has announced the shortlist of four young artists, contending ofr the premier annual national art prize. Among them is Phil Collins, the artist who creates photographic and video installations involving diverse social groups. His recent projects include a work called Baghdad Screentests, made in 2002 in the run-up to the Iraq war. Forty participants were recruited in Baghdad to sit silently for a series of Hollywood-style screen tests for a film that did not exist. Another work, They Shoot Horses, documented a disco marathon which he organised in Ramallah by paying nine Palestinians to dance for eight hours.

"my independence day"

Another great cartoon by Batia Kolton. Perfect for today....