ART EVENT (Artissima, Italy, Nov 6-8 , 2015) Lawrie Shabibi presents YazanKhalili at Artissima, 2015

Lawrie Shabibi is pleased to announce its participation in the Present Future section of Artissima with a solo presentation by YazanKhalili. Khalili’s practice is detailed, reflective and full of intent, using photography and the written word to unravel historically constructed landscapes. In a climate of mass displacement and uncertain territorial boundaries Khalili’s work is relevant: he explores the effect of geographical distance on our interpretation of territory, and its ability to amplify or arrest our political and sentimental attachments.

In 'The Day we Saw Nothing In Front of Us' (2015) Khalili takes images of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories and then proceeds to scratch them out, revealing not only the possibility of an iconoclastic future but the materiality of the image itself whereby violence can be enacted upon the violence depicted. 'On Love and Other Landscapes' (2011) tells a heart-wrenching story of two separated lovers. The film/book follows a narrative of a failed love story, involving a woman who had recently abandoned the narrator and left him with the landscape photographs lacking his presence and the presence of the notorious Israeli built Wall in the West Bank, an absence which echoes the atmosphere conjured by these images. Love, politics, and the apocalyptic landscape collide and what is in the images suddenly becomes important, as what is apocalyptic also reveals or uncovers the truth. 
In the video 'The Blindness of Love' (2013) text and image merge to form one sentence that describes the pain of two lovers parting ways. Images and words blink quickly so that the flashes – the absence of the image – becomes more palpable than image or text, thereby bringing this gulf between the lovers and the words/images to the fore stylistically.

YazanKhalili, The Day We Saw Nothing in Front of Us, 2015, Scratching on photography, 50 x 75 cm / Courtesy Lawrie Shabibi and the Artist.

YazanKhalili, Blindness of love, 2013, Video, HD. Duration-1 min 58 sec / Courtesy Lawrie Shabibi and the Artist

Artissima is Italy’s most important contemporary art fair. Since its establishment in 1994, it has combined the presence of an international market with a focus on experimentation and research. Nearly two hundred galleries from around the world participate every year. In addition to the fair, Artissima is also composed of three art sections, headed by a board of international curators and museum directors, devoted to emerging artists, performances and rediscovering the great pioneers of contemporary art.Present Future is a special curated section of the fair devoted to emerging artists that for fourteen years has been an important launching platform for a new generation of artists.

YazanKhalili


Khalili was born in 1981 and lives and works in and out of Palestine. He received a degree in Architecture from Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine in 2003, graduating in 2010 with a Master’s degree from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. Khalili completed residencies at the Delfina Foundation, London, UK, in 2008 and the National Film School of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark in 2006. Khalili is currently pursuing an MFA degree at Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.

Khalili has taken part in a number of solo exhibitions including: The Aliens, Transit Gallery, Mechelen, Belgium, 2015; Regarding Distance, E.O.A. Projects, London, UK, 2014; On Love and other Landscapes, Imane Fares Gallery, Paris, France, 2013; Landscape of Darkness, Transit Gallery, Mechelen, Belgium, 2011; Urban Impression, French Cultural Centres, Palestine, 2007-8 and Margins, The Delfina Foundation, London, UK, 2008. Khalili has also participated in several group shows including Invisible, Ramallah, Palestine, Amman, Jordan and Rome, Italy, 2006-7; No Man’s Land, Video Art, Granada, Spain, 2008; Mapping, Art Dubai, UAE, 2009; The Jerusalem Show, Al Ma’mal Foundation, Palestine, 2010 and 2011; External: New Art from Further East, Newertown | Art, London, UK, 2010; Future of a Promise Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennial, Italy, 2011; Passport to Palestine, La Scatola Gallery, London, UK, 2011; #Come Together, Edge of Arabia, London, UK, 2012; Forum Expanded, Berlinale 62, Germany, 2012; Re-emerge, Sharjah Biennial 11, UAE, 2013 and Deep Into That Darkness Peering, KSCC, Ramallah, Palestine, 2013.

Khalili’s work is in several prominent collections including the British Museum, London, UK; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE and the Imperial War Museum, London, UK. In 2015 Khalili received a grant from The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture as well as one from the Young Arab Theatre Fund. In 2006 Khalili received the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Artists Award and was nominated for the KLM Paul Huf Award in 2009, 2010 and 2012, as well as the Bellagio Award in 2013.