Solo Exhibition by Bashir Makhoul

Curated by: Rawan Sharaf
Opening: Thursday, October 8, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, October 10, 2015, at 7:00 p.m.
The exhibition runs till Saturday, January 30, 2016.

The exhibition Floating Free has been realized through a partnership between Al Hoash and Birzeit University Museum (BZUM), which has not only enabled us to present the artist’s major works to a Palestinian audience but also to join institutional forces to overcome the challenges involved in implementing one of the largest solo exhibitions to be shown in Palestine. The exhibition, which will be presented in Jerusalem, Birzeit, and Ramallah, with one major public space performance in Jerusalem, takes into account movement restrictions among Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Jerusalem as it allows the integration of an educational program that reaches out to diverse audiences, reflecting the efforts to provide and disseminate knowledge.

Introducing the works of Bashir Makhoul presents a challenge that requires a perceptive selection of terms. In this case, where we are introducing a Palestinian émigré, it is necessary to take into account the implications that arise from the context of his experience. This includes the artist’s description of his work Return – produced with lenticular lens screens – in an interview with Gordon Horn, “This is the effect of the lenticulars – as they shift and morph with the point of view, there is a constant displacement and replacement going on, as though there were something right in front of your eyes that keeps vanishing as soon as you look at it.”* An experience similar to the continuous attempts to define notions of identity, which rather than clarifying meaning, usually leave us with a sense of confusion.

Bashir Makhoul’s approach continuously questions the interrelationship of occupation, space, identity, and perception. While wandering around the exhibition venues, the spectator will be introduced to the artist’s profound interpretations and reflections on symbolism and the interrelation between capitalism, space, and identity. His work is deeply contemplative as it addresses the effects of the Palestinian reality and the Israeli dominance over Palestinian identity, and, at the same time, reaches out to a meta-level, unraveling the interlocking relationship between the world economy, politics, and our daily lives. It is this in-between space, with its descriptions of the orchestrated perception of daily life in Palestine and beyond, which is depicted in a powerful way through the works presented in this exhibition.

Al Hoash
Tel: 02-627-3501
http://www.alhoashgallery.org/

Birzeit University Museum
Tel: 02-298-2976
www.birzeit.edu