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On 21 January 1986, a car bomb exploded in the Furn Ech Chuback
district of Beirut, one of 245 that were to shake Beirut at
regular intervals during the years of civil war. Walid Raad,
Tony Chakar and Bilal Khbeiz's on-going exploration of contemporary
and historical events in Lebanon focuses on these car bombings,
creating a fictive documentary on the make, model and colour
of each car used as a bomb. Since the cars were European,
Japanese and American, they started their project in the countries
producing those cars and engines - in Germany, for instance,
concentrating primarily on the luxury Mercedes 200 and 220
models from the late 1970s.
Walid Raad's instalment project began with the fetishistic relation
between the cars details and the bombs, as city dwellers struggled
to identify suspect vehicles. This fetishism was equally present
in Lebanese press news reports, not only publishing photos of mutilated
bodies of the victims but also showing the craters left by the blasts.
Engines and axles tended to be used to identify the vehicles, since
they were the only parts to survive the explosion intact - even
when found hundreds of meters away, frequently on someone's balcony
or roof.
Walid Raad is generally recognised as one of the most outstanding
artists from the Arabian world. His works have been shown in Germany
at, for instance, Documenta11 and IN TRANSIT 03. He enquires into
the social, political, economic, military, technological, psychological
and knowledge theory levels of war, investigating the public and
private discourse generated around these car bombs. He now presents
his initial findings from his detailed detection work in his own
idiosyncratic way, creating an installation at the interface of
lecture, performance and video, oscillating between detailed documentary
and ironic distance. This instalment of his project forms only a
part of his on-going research on and into the broader context of
the events, experience, forms and objects around the car bombs in
Lebanon's civil war.
A co-production by
The Atlas Group (Beirut / New York)
Ashkal Alwan (Beirut)
Kunsten Festival des Arts (Brussels)
House of World Cultures (Berlin)
Spectacles Vivants, Centre Pompidou (Paris)
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My Neck is Thinner Than a Hair
Concept and Performance: Walid Raad, Tony Chakar, Bilal Khbeiz
Language: English
Walid Raad, born in 1967, is generally recognised
as one of the most outstanding artists from the Arab world.
His works have been shown in Germany at, for instance, the
2002 Documenta11 and in the House of World Cultures' IN TRANSIT
03 and DisORIENTation projects. His work comprises artefacts,
photography, video installations and performances. Since 1983
he has been living in the United States, studying initially
from 1984 in Boston, and from 1989-96 "Cultural and Visual
Studies" at the University of Rochester. He has been
head of the Atlas Group since 1992. Founded in 1976, the Atlas
Group has dedicated its work to dealing with the Lebanese
civil war, taking it as the focus of an artistic documentation.
Today Raad lives in New York, where he teaches at the Cooper
Union University.
http://www.theatlasgroup.org
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