everything and nothing and other works from
the ongoing video installation, ‘untitled’’, 1999-2003.
Jayce Salloum
Opening Saturday, September 6 at 2 p.m.
The exhibition runs from September 6 to October 4, 2003.
The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.
Dazibao, in coproduction with Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal,
presents everything and nothing and other works from the ongoing video
installation, ‘untitled’, 1999-2003, an exhibition by Jayce
Salloum. This seven-channel video installation demonstrates the artist’s
continuing interest in the representation of social and geo-political
realities. His focus on borders, nationalisms, and movements complements
his close attention to issues of subjectivity, one that he has carefully
and expertly developed over the two and a half decades of his practice.
In this installation, Salloum deconstructs the traditional documentary
format as he explores the various conditions of living between polarities
of culture, geography, history, and ideology.
everything and nothing, the video from which the exhibition takes its title, consists of an interview with ex-Lebanese National Resistance fighter and icon, Soha Bechara. Rather than question her about her experience of capture, imprisonment and torture, Salloum conducts an intimate, if problematic, conversation in her tiny Paris dorm room, itself hardly bigger than a cell. He asks her, off camera in stilted French, not about the hard facts but about her impressions and thoughts. Bechara’s intelligent and positive answers in Arabic build a captivating alternative portrait of a woman who would be labeled a terrorist (in terms defined by the West). Bechara and Salloum’s interaction, along with the combination of open-ended questions and assertive filmic devices, such as extreme close-ups and quick zooms, remind the viewer of the camera’s presence, as well as both the subject and the artist’s positions.
Salloum's installation was at the heart of the controversy over the attempted cancellation of the exhibition, The Lands within Me: Expressions by Canadian Artists of Arab Origin, which opened at the Museum of Civilization (Gatineau) in October 2001, immediately following the tragedy of September 11th. After viewing Salloum’s tapes, the directors of the museum attempted to postpone the exhibition “indefinitely”. A large international public outcry forced the Museum to open and present the exhibition as originally planned.
Salloum’s work is further contextualized within the framework of the current Mois de la Photo à Montréal, entitled NOW. Images of Present Time. The festival’s theme investigates the current and historic dialogue between photography and history. Artistic Director Vincent Lavoie’s aim to present artistic practices that “restore, destroy and refer to the testamonial function of the image” is well demonstrated by Salloum’s deep understanding of the way that our perceptions are constructed by the media