Ziad Antar

Untitled Limits

 

 Cactus

The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine and found people simple enough to believe him was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had some one pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men: ``Do not listen to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!``

While the cactus was planted in the past to define limits and borders for each piece of property, to control the exterior and interior movement, we are witnessing a current proliferation of borders and limits that take the shape of walls, wires and fences. We live in a new historical era, where the hostility of a cactus plant is insufficiently offensive, so wires are erected to assist the plant.

 

Yesterdays border is now doubled and fortified by a new border…
Yesterdays oppressor is now oppressed, “the protection tool needs protection”

 

Cactus” series is an ongoing project that is following the historicity of territorial constructions focusing on clashes and bonds between the old organic borders and the new industrial ones. Before the fact that those border lines exercise a political, economical and vital impact on land, people and nature, the series is witnessing this escalation of oppression.

 

Intensive Beirut

A gaze from the horizon, from Saida to Beirut

Beirut is a city where monuments cannot thrive. It is experienced in the form of a blurred knowledge. One that keeps escaping the memory, that lacks the tangible, the concrete… What it leaves you with is a thought; an idea of a city, its vibrancy, its intricacies… and a fiction of it you once created in your imagination before you even encountered it.”

 

Ziad Antar ’s project is part of the group exhibition Dalla via Emilia al mondo, curated by  Diane Dufour, Elio Grazioli e Walter Guadagnini.

Dalla via Emilia al mondo

The theme of Fotografia Europea 2016 opens to the world in the venue of Palazzo da Mosto with the collective exhibition Dalla via Emilia al mondo (From the via Emilia to the World).

Room after room, the work ranges from high quality photojournalism to the most creative approach introducing topical themes, from a lyrical gaze to a more engaged position. The artists tackle the dramatic aspect of borders, those which are marked and those less visible but still evident. Here, the social, political, and human themes take precedence, recounted primarily by non-Italian artists: Ziad Antar, Paola De Pietri, Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev, Kent Klich, Bettina Lockemann, Maanantai Collective, Michael Najjar, Paolo Pellegrin, Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber.

BIO

Ziad Antar (Saida, Lebanon, 1978) is a Lebanese video artist and photographer. He studied Agricultural Engineering at the American University of Beirut before turning to video and arts with a residency at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and a post-diploma of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Antar’s work has been acquired by several public collections, including Centre George Pompidou in France, the British Museum in the United Kingdom and LVMH collection.

His work has been exhibited in many solo and group shows: Galerie Sfeir Semler, Beirut; Taipei Biennial, 2008; Sharjah Biennial; Beirut Art Center; Almine Rech Gallery, Paris, 2009; Pinchkuk Art Centre, Kiev; Seoul Museum of Art; Centre Photographique d’Ile-de-France, Paris, 2010; 54th Venice Biennale, 2011; Villa Empain, Brussels, 2012; Fotofest Houston; Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels; 2014; Selma Feriani Gallery, London, 2015.

EVENTS

7 May 11 am, Palazzo Da Mosto

ASK THE ARTIST: From the via Emilia to the World

with Ziad Antar, Maanantai Collective, Paola De Pietri, Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev, Kent Klich, Michael Najjar, Paolo Pellegrin, Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber.

The artists answer at questions by public.

 

8 May 10.30 am, Teatro Cavallerizza

LECTURE: From the via Emilia to the World

Diane Dufour, Elio Grazioli e Walter Guadagnini talks with the artists Ziad Antar, Maanantai Collective, Paola De Pietri, Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev, Kent Klich, Michael Najjar, Paolo Pellegrin, Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber

EXHIBITION VENUE

Palazzo da Mosto
via Mari, 7
42121 Reggio Emilia

1
 

OPENING HOURS

inaugural days
May 6 › 7am-11pm
May 7 and 8 › 10am-11pm
from May 9 to July 10 Friday/Sunday
Friday › 6pm-11pm
Saturday › 10am-11pm
Sunday and holiday › 10am-8pm

Category
Palazzo da Mosto