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Survey exhibition at Darat al Funun, Amman, with key works shown together for the first time, as well as several rarely seen works. 4 Nov. 2014 - 23 April 2015
Nov 2014Darat al Funun presents an extensive survey of select work from Emily Jacir’s oeuvre, including film and video works, installations, interventions, audio works, and sculpture. From Change/Exchange (1998) to Untitled (SOLIDARIDAD) (2013), the exhibition contains key works presented together for the first time, as well as several rarely seen works. This includes two site-specific works that have not been shown since they were created in 1999, Everywhere/Nowhere, and from Amman to Bethlehem (contraband).
The non-chronological presentation dispersed over several buildings of the Darat al Funun compound echoes the complexities and tensions articulated in Jacir's work. Since the early 1990s, Jacir has created works about transformation, questions of translation, resistance, and the logic of the archive. With restrained formal means she makes visible silenced historical narratives, with a focus on her own political, historical, and social relationships.
Her work ex libris (2010-2012), commissioned for dOCUMENTA (13), commemorates the approximately thirty thousand books from Palestinian homes, libraries, and institutions that were looted by Israeli authorities in 1948. In this exhibition, the artist also presents documentation of her 2002 installation Today, there are four million of us, which revisited the Jordanian Pavilion at the 1964/65 World's Fair in New York. Lydda Airport (2009) is a film which takes place in the eponymous location in the mid to late 1930s. The film was inspired by Edmond Tamari, a transport company employee from Jaffa, who received word that he should take a bouquet of flowers to Lydda Airport and wait for the arrival of Amelia Earhart to welcome her to Palestine. stazione (2009), a public intervention conceived for the 53rd Venice Biennale, created a bilingual transport route through the city that made visible Venice's shared history with the Arab world. Punctuating the exhibition is a selection of the artist's smaller-scale works, sketches, and documentations, reflecting the diversity of her practice.
The exhibition’s title is a poem by Gregory Corso that he recited in front of Jacir in Rome, Italy.
A fully illustrated bilingual English-Arabic catalogue with an essay by Adila Laidi-Hanieh will be published after the opening.
The exhibition runs from 4 November 2014 - 23 April 2015.
About Emily Jacir
Emily Jacir is the recipient of several awards, including a Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); a Prince Claus Award (2007); the Hugo Boss Prize (2008); and the Herb Alpert Award (2011). Jacir’s works have been in numerous important group exhibitions, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; dOCUMENTA (13) (2012); Venice Biennale (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013); 29th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2010); 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006); the 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003). Solo exhibitions include the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015); Beirut Art Center (2010), Guggenheim Museum, New York (2009); Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen (2008); The Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah (2004); and the O-K Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria (2003). In 2003 O.K. Books published a monograph on a selection of Jacir’s work belongings. Her second monograph (2008) was published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, and in 2012 Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln, published her book ex libris.
She is a professor at the International Academy of Art Palestine in Ramallah since it opened in 2006, and served on its Academic Board from (2006–2012). Jacir is on the faculty of Bard MFA in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Select juries that Jacir has served on include Visions du Reel Festival international du cinéma (2014), Berlinale Shorts International Jury (2012), the Cinema XXI Jury Rome Film Festival (2012), and Cda-Projects Grant for Artistic Research and Production, Istanbul. Between 1999 - 2002 she curated several Arab and Palestinian Film programs for NYC with Alwan for the Arts. She conceived of and co-curated the first Palestine International Video Festival in Ramallah in 2002 with John Menick. She also curated a selection of shorts; “Palestinian Revolution Cinema (1968 -1982)” which went on tour in 2007. She lives in the Mediterranean.
Emiliy Jacir
A star is as far as the eye can see and as near as my eye is to me
4 November 2014 - 23 April 2015