The Art Centre is pleased to present the first Canadian solo exhibition of works by Akram Zaatari, one of Lebanon’s most respected contemporary artists. Zaatari’s art practice involves unearthing, collecting and recontextualizing a wide range of documents that confound notions of history while recognizing the ways in which these documents are uneasily situated as evidence of tense political and cultural conditions. The exhibition will juxtapose several video and photography projects that explore what Zaatari calls the “dynamics that govern the state of image-making in situations of war.” In this exploration, Zaatari employs letter writing as a device, a mode of address and a research method to situate his works in a fractured political context while offering intimate and particular ways of knowing the event.

Born in Saida, Lebanon, in 1966, Akram Zaatari is an artist, curator and writing living in Beirut. He is the co-founders of the Arab Image Foundation (www.fai.org.lb), a non-profit organization whose mission is to collect, preserve and study photographs from the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab diaspora. His work has been featured in discourse-setting exhibitions such as Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany and the Sharjah Biennial, and was on view at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York from mid-May to September 2013. Zaatari also represented Lebanon at the Venice Biennale in 2013. His Canadian premiere immediately follows these two high-profile engagements.

This exhibition is curated by Vicky Moufawad-Paul. A publication with essays by the curator and Judith Rodenbeck accompanies the exhibition.

This exhibition is generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council, the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund and the Chancellor Dunning Trust Lecture, Queen’s University.

Click here to read a review by Dina Georgis in issue 52 of Public.

Click here to read a review by Amber Berson in C Magazine.

Touring Schedule
Museum London
14 May–4 September 2016