HOLD
Three installations by Bashir Makhoul
Who the Fuck are You? video installation, 1999
Thirst, video installation, 1999
Who’s Who, photography, 1999
“The title of the exhibition, chosen by the artist, indicates the nature of his concerns through a cluster of meanings….The word (‘hold’) encompasses territory, goods, people; ownership, property, belonging. Safety through the binding/holding together of all of these things…
Who the Fuck are You? is a recent work that derived from a specific moment Bashir Makhoul experienced when visiting an exhibition of his work at the National Gallery of Jordan in 1998. He found himself – that is to say his identity as an individual – being challenged by a group of Jordanian intellectuals…
Thirst plays on the universal symbolic link between water and emotion: thirst is also desire…Thirst shows the desire for the resolution on the aesthetic level of the joy and pain of living. Of course, it is also about thee element of water itself and the central place it has always held for human beings as a natural resource fundamental to life…
Makhoul’s new series of photographically reproduced digitally manipulated images called Who’s Who loosly follows the programme suggested by Cubbitt (There are eight images in the series, a pair for each of the elements). The ‘programme’ is only part of the story , of course.Each image has been worked to produce a tension and an allure, to make it so highly chatged visually that it will attract and absorb attention. The result moves us through its aesthetic quality: it is not a manifesto but a prayer, an exhortation to live in harmony.”
Lewis Bigg (Director, Tate gallery, Liverpool)

The exhibition is supported by the British Council and BI-ARTS

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