Ali Cherri

Ali Cherri belongs to this generation of Lebanese artists born during the Civil War and whose artistic practice was greatly marked by this unstable context. After studying Graphic Design at the American University of Beirut, he received a Masters degree in Performing Arts from DasArts, Amsterdam in 2005. His polymorphous practice feeds upon, performance, cinema and art history. These multiple references show in his early videos, where his own body acts as a pivot in a refined aesthetic composition. Between 2005 and 2014, he focuses on dissecting the geopolitical situation of the Middle East, with a highly poetical visual language. His recent projects concentrate on the place of the archaeological object in the construction of historical narratives. This thematic change is the sign of a philosophical shift. Cherri still affirms a close intimacy between poetics and politics, but is now convinced that violence can be studied without being shown.

The Breathless Forest

Ali Cherri’s installation takes the form of a “failed diorama”, a three dimensional, life-size, simulated environment in which nature is put on display. By failing to immerse the viewer entirely in the illusion, The Breathless Forest explores “nature” as a construct embedded in the cultural, symbolic, and political orders of human history. The installation offers a window through which the pedestrians can peek into a dead forest. While dioramas offer ways to produce permanence, to stop decomposition and keep things from disappearing, in The Breathless Forest decay seems to have already taken place. In spite of the death, the skinning and the dismemberment of the taxidermy animals composing the diorama, their glass eyes succeed in returning the viewer’s gaze.