United Red Army by Naeem Mohaiemen | The Fourth Stage by Ahmad Ghossein -
Followed by Q&A with Ahmad Ghossein
past
20 November 2015
Time:
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Event Type
Film screening
Location
Beirut Art Center
CHECK THE MAP
Image: Still from The Fourth Stage. Courtesy of the artist.
MORE INFORMATION
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Naeem Mohaiemen
Naeem Mohaiemen is a writer and visual artist, working in Dhaka
and New York. His essays, films, and photography explore the theme
of failed utopias. Since 2006, he has been working on a long-form
research project on the collapse of the ultra-left of the 1970s and the
dangerous seduction of movements that promise revolution through
violent confrontation. Mohaimen is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow.
Ahmad Ghossein
Ahmad Ghossein is an artist and filmmaker whose work draws on
political history through personal narrative. He obtained his MA
in visual art from the National Academy of Art, Oslo. Ghossein’s
works include What Does Not Resemble Me Looks Exactly Like Me (2009);
Faces Applauding Alone (2008); and 210m (produced by Ashkal Alwan,
2007); Yesterday’s News, a solo exhibition at Kunstforening Olso (2012);
Relocating the Past, Ruins for the Future, a public space project (2013); and
The Fourth Stage commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation (2015).
His work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York;
Berlin International Film Festival; International Short Film Festival
Oberhausen; the New Museum, New York; Kunsthall Oslo; Home Works,
Beirut; and Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen.
ABOUT THE FILMS
United Red Army (The Young Man Was, Part 1) – Naeem Mohaiemen | English, Bengali, Japanese With English supertitles, 70’ | 2011
Since 2006, Mohaiemen has worked on a history of the 1970s revolutionary left, with Bangladesh as a focal point making linkages to parallel movements elsewhere. The research looks at forms of insurrectionary belonging as manifestations of a doomed masculinity project.
Part 1 centers on the 1977 hijack of JAL 472, a Hollywood actress on honeymoon, and an interrupted episode of The Zoo Gang. Unfolding in darkness, the film carries forward Naeem’s long-term interest in text as a central visual object.
Part 3 of the project (Last Man in Dhaka Central) is currently on view at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Image: Courtesy of the artist.
The Fourth Stage – Ahmad Ghossein | Arabic with English subtitles, 30’ | 2015
The Fourth Stage looks at the increasing number of monuments with
an abstract vernacular in south of Lebanon, specifically in locations
such as valleys and roadsides that bear no particular symbolic
significance. The architects of the Ministry of Interior’s Information
Office had plans for monuments and sizable works covering entire
mountains. It would be impossible not to be moved by the intensity
of these monuments. Upon venturing into the area, one immediately
encounters a new visual identity that fully occupies the space.
On the other hand, on a popular level, confectioners produce a
somewhat different type of monument: sweet molds for religious
holidays. These molds for all occasions represent an alternative form
of architecture. This film attempts to trace the paths of ideology and
mythology that are seeking to combine new narrative and visual forms
and reshape the geopolitical landscape of South Lebanon.
Image: Still from
The Fourth Stage. Courtesy of the artist.
GETTING THERE
Beirut Art Center
Jisr El Wati, Building 13, Street 97, Zone 66 Adlieh
Phone: +961 (0) 1 397 018 / +961 70 262 112
