Akram Zaatari, Letter to A Refusing Pilot (film still), 2013 © Akram Zaatari

Akram Zaatari

Unfolding

7.3 2015 – 16.8 2015

Stockholm

Akram Zaatari (born 1966 in Saida, South Lebanon) compares his artistic practice to that of an archaeologist. The excavation of objects, images and stories, and his interest in subjective historiography, take him deep into a not too distant past.

Zaatari belongs to a generation of artists who are heirs to the conceptual and media-critical art that emerged internationally in the 1970s and 1980s, frequently with roots in photography. These artists move freely between documentation and subjectivity, between archive and memory.

The exhibition features works that share an archaeological gesture, performed in different locations across layers of history, all in relation to Zaatari’s hometown Saida. The artist’s excavations lead to finds of objects and photographic documents. These are organized in the exhibition space along with films and other objects to further emphasize and explore the multiple functions of photographs: intimate descriptions, records of work and products of an industry.

Much of Zaatari’s engagement with researching and studying existing photography began with The Arab Image Foundation in Beirut in 1997, when he co-founded this non-profit organisation for the preservation and study of photographs from the Middle East and North Africa.

Curator: Magnus af Petersens