Tarek Al Ghoussein, Untitled 22 [D Series], 2008, Digital Ink Jet print, 100 x 150 cm.
Tarek Al Ghoussein, Untitled 22 [D Series], 2008, Digital Ink Jet print, 100 x 150 cm.
Tarek Al Ghoussein, Untitled 2 [Series A], 2003, C-print, 55 x 75 cm.
Tarek Al Ghoussein, Untitled 2 [Series A], 2003, C-print, 55 x 75 cm.
Tarek Al Ghoussein, Untitled 2 [Series A], 2003, C-print, 55 x 75 cm. |
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The Third Line
Al Quoz 3
+9714 341 1367
Dubai
Tarek Al-Ghoussein: D Series
12 February-5 March, 2009
A Palestinian-Kuwaiti based in the UAE, much of Tarek Al-Ghoussein's work deals with how his identity is shaped in a context of inaccessibility and loss in relation to an imagined “homeland”. In many of his photographs the artist is dwarfed by a vast desert landscape, reconstructing allegorical scenarios for the obstacles, barricades and walls erected in the Occupied Territories.
Due to the rapid transformation of the UAE, Al-Ghoussein’s experience living here for the past ten years has further heightened his sense of the malleability of territory and identity and his own relationship to those constructs. The anonymity of the desert has offered an ideal stage for these performed investigations.
The Self Portrait Series began in the charged moments following the September 11th attacks in 2001, as a response to the frustration with the Western media and its (mis)representations of Arabs as terrorists. He subsequently produced two other bodies of photographs, the A Series and the B Series, which are a reference to the wall in Palestine. These follow a more poetic, metaphorical and layered approach to his subject, focusing on physical barriers, land, longing and belonging. Reflecting on his position as a Palestinian-Kuwaiti who has never lived within the borders of Palestine, Al-Ghoussein says of his work, "The walls and mounds that appear throughout the images also speak of my own individual struggles irrespective of the conventional notions of national identity".
In his C Series Al-Ghoussein explores the desert landscape through intervening with a series of constructed and found sites which ultimately results in a visualization of the temporary. "Although I did not set out to investigate the notion of transience, my work has developed from a process of exploring ideas related to land and place".
Al-Ghoussein's current work, which was exhibited in large format at the 2008 Singapore Biennale, has taken on a more performative aspect where the artist physically situates himself in between, next to, behind, under or even in front of makeshift obstructions constructed of green tarpolin. The D Series finds the artist in a choreographed exercise negotiating for the right to exist with and within his sometimes apocalyptic surroundings. "The D Series continues the exploration by examining the relationship between the subject and space, particularly the relationship between the solitary figure and the temporary boundaries that define a place. The series has allowed me to explore how the individual both affects and is affected by space."
Kevin Mitchell, Associate Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) explains in an essay commissioned for Al-Ghoussein’s upcoming artist book, “The extreme long shots that characterize the images seem to indicate an increasing distance between Al-Ghoussein as photographer and Al-Ghoussein as subject – the D Series is less autobiographical and more about staging scenarios in which narrative and composition are treated interdependently in order to construct meaning that transcends individual experience and mere re-presentation of the subject.”
The Third Line is publishing an artist book that documents Al-Ghoussein’s artistic progression and latest works. The book, titled In Absentia: Photographs by Tarek Al-Ghoussein, will be launched in February 2009 to coincide with this solo exhibition and will be available for sale at The Third Line and bookstores throughout the region and internationally. The book is designed by Roderick Grant, an Assistant Professor of Design in the School of Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the U.A.E. The design of the book, including size, texture, colour and layout were specified in relation to and as an extension of the space in order to support the overall viewing of the work.
Tarek Al-Ghoussein was born in Kuwait in 1962. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts-Photography from New York University in 1985 and four years later a Master of Arts-Photography from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
He has exhibited extensively in Germany, France, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, the United States and across the UAE. Al-Ghoussein participated in Dubai Next, at the Vitra Design Museum in 2008 as well as in the 2003 and 2005 editions of the Sharjah Biennial. Al Ghoussein’s work has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK, the Royal Photography Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Sharjah Biennale Collection among many others.
Al-Ghoussein lives in Sharjah, and is an Associate Professor of photography at the School of Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah (AUS). |
