Ayman Baalbaki @ Agial Gallery

Face masks, cagoules, kaffiyehs and gas masks are all symbolic images in themselves. They have been given meaning and/or significance by those that wear them, as well as those who see them. They may evoke fear , pride, humiliation depending on the individual. Associations of prisoners, militants, and Arab male identity all come to mind. Together they create a significant collective of the masculine veil.

Being a refugee and having to flee with little possessions. Momentoes left behind, taking only the essentials for a building a new life in a different place. All tightly wrapped together in a bundle.

The Arab man wrapped in a Kaffiyeh. It is an image of masculinity, an image of resistance, and of tradition. In this instance it is an image that has been given full reverence to the material covering the face. Yet he looks up. Possibly to Ursa Major, to the seven stars above. Icon worthy of veneration, the secular figure has been placed in a golden niche similar to that of a cult image. This is an Arab Man rendered sacred.

Skeletons of buildings abandoned by force. The spectator is transported to a place of massive destruction. Yet these buildings tell the tale of resistance. They remain standing, they bear the visual scars and they speak loudly of their ordeal. Hallowed out, disfigured buildings missing windows, exterior walls and those families that once called them home testify to the disproportion of the violence.They remain as monuments of struggle and resistance.

These are a selection of the different ways in which the most recent body of work by Ayman Baalbaki currently at Agial Art Gallery discusses issues of place and the singular experience of being. The collections of works reflects a personal investigation into issues of identity, gender and community.

Some pictures ... for a Monday morning (Beirut)

Continuing with the theme of street art.. here are a few images taken from the streets of Beirut.

Here is a wall near Monot and USJ done a few years ago.The text is in Arabic which translates to "Beirut never dies". It was done a few years ago one a night when Beirut was under seige...


or another artist... arofish.. and his stenciled kite flier in the suburbs Dahiyeh
or his trash tv stencil...

or an homage to the men that clean up the city streets of Beirut.. the stenciled sukleen man

or 3dom and their stenciled people pulling the plug out of the wall... encouraging people at home to turn off the media outlets.. and find other more pleasant activites

or 3dom's three people breaking through the metal bars that sectioned off areas of the city...



The 961 Underground also is represented with a mural..

If these images are an indication of what the street art community is doing in Beirut then it looks all good..we can only hope that everyone keeps on keeping on.

7th Edition of the Lebanese Film Festival Deadline Today!!!

Sorry about this last minute posting but ... Im going to post it anyway!
I'm excited to see this year's festival. Save the date August 21st -26th 2008

Tine

Randa Mirza: Parallel Universes

Randa Mirza. Untitled #2 from the series Parallel Universes, 90cm x 58cm, 2008

Look through old family photographs and there is Grandma on her honeymoon in Paris, pictures from a camping trip in Vermont, or a snapshot of kids posing with Mickey Mouse. These are standard photographs taken during countless vacations that serve as tangible reminders of the intimate past.

On any given day peruse the newspaper and there are much different images. Bombed out buildings, men with guns, mothers crying while holding their injured loved ones. These images remind us that there is suffering, violence and pain on a daily basis. The individuals who capture these moments are bearing witness to what is taking place around them.

what happens when snap shots and photojournalism photography collide?


Randa Mirza takes the term war tourism and presents it in its most literal form. The series "Parallel Universes" addresses the passive spectator and the global media’s macabre fascination with violence by playing with this collision. A beautiful blond poses with a V for victory in front of a checkpoint, two men contemplate a body at the scene of a car crash or Japanese tourists take pictures of a burning car. In each of the images in this series there is an unsettling juxtaposition between the tourist’s calm and the chaotic environment that surrounds each of them. By doing so Ms. Mirza encourages us to question the facility with which human suffering is depicted around the globe to an audience that is more often than not indifferent to its emotional significance.

Tine

SuperHajja

With this first posting Art and Blow is going back a few years to a time and place where superheros like the Hulk and Spiderman just weren’t cutting it. It was time for a wiser, more powerful female superhero. Thanks to SuperHajja, an animation from the creative duo at GreyMog, we can all rest easy knowing that there is someone with unique powers to call on in times of need.

Tine