The video artist Basma Alsharif and the photographer Yazan Khalili, both Palestinian, take a documentary approach to their art, basing their work on their own personal and emotional experiences. Each artist speaks metaphorically of the political situation with eloquent contradictions.
For Yazan Khalili, it’s the fictional story of a failed love affair, emotional dependence followed by an emotional shutdown, which lays the foundation for a relationship at the West Bank barrier. It’s also a tale of travel told within the confines of narrative, freeing itself from formal limits in an ode to the exploration of territories assumed to be inaccessible. Each image bears a citation that serves both as a caption and a subtitle for a slow-moving and memory-laden film.
For Basma Alsharif, the proof of the image is constantly challenged in favor of the subjective experience of contradictory videos blending photographs, drawings and text. These two artists combine genres to the point where their boundaries implode. The act is as much artistic as it is political.
Laurence Cornet
On Love and Other Landscapes
January 31 – March 30, 2013
Galerie Imane Farès
41 rue Mazarine,
75006 Paris – France
T : +33 (0)1 46 33 13 13
