July 11th - September 3rd, 2008
Bluecoat and Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
Can Altay, Ziad Antar, Lara Baladi, Cevdet Erek, Tarek Al Ghoussein, Chourouk Hriech, Randa Mirza, Michael Rakowitz, Hrair Sarkissian, Sharif Waked and Tarek Zaki.
Curated by November Paynter
>Can Altay, Mirrorworld, c-print, 2008
>Can Altay, Mirrorworld, c-print, 2008
The cities of the Arab region are incredibly diverse in their form and character, including sites of ancient civilisation, as well as some of the most youthful urban establishments in the world. Similarly, their heritage and contemporary culture are varied and complex. While cities such as Baghdad struggle in the midst of war to protect their museums and architectural heritage, others like Cairo attempt to balance tensions between ancient history and 21st century culture. In some urban centres, including Damascus and Beirut, the structural skeletons of tomorrow’s heritage have been overtaken by rapid and incomplete development, or the devastation of war. Then there are cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi that are in the early stages of promoting a new urban cultural legacy by creating a space for the arts from scratch and housing selections of international art from collections such as the Guggenheim and the Louvre.
New Ends, Old Beginnings investigates a very particular geographical sphere through artists’ responses to the many layers of local and everyday culture, a perspective that the world’s media often overlooks or avoids making visible, preferring instead to present images that shock and manipulate. Questions the artists engage with include: what aspects of a city's culture can and should be saved and shared? How can hundreds of years of history co-exist with current and future cultural practices? Can a newly created cultural hub ever be considered as authentic? An examination of heritage in its many forms - as physical, symbolic and traditional elements of urban reality - also informs how these cities are perceived by those from outside. What does tourism mean for cities of the Arab region and how abstracted is the virtual tourism fed to us by the media?
Considering the questions above, the works included in New Ends, Old Beginnings reveal features of, and help describe current responses to, the situation of cultural heritage in the Arab region through a contemporary lens. Works included in the exhibition have been carefully selected and commissioned to reference the specific themes of heritage, cultural industry and tourism, and to take into consideration the practices involved in protecting, maintaining, re-evaluating and perceiving heritage via art.
This exhibition has been supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, Liverpool City Council, Zenith Foundation, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool Culture Company, Esmee Fairbairn.
Galleries at the Bluecoat:
Open daily, 10.00am – 6.00pm
0151 702 5324
info@thebluecoat.org.uk
www.thebluecoat.org.uk
the Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BX
Open Eye Gallery
Open Tue – Sat, 10.30am – 5.30pm
Closed Sun – Mon
0151 709 9460
info@openeye.org.uk
www.openeye.org.uk
Open Eye Gallery, 28 – 32 wood Street, Liverpool L1 4AQ
New Ends, Old Beginnings investigates a very particular geographical sphere through artists’ responses to the many layers of local and everyday culture, a perspective that the world’s media often overlooks or avoids making visible, preferring instead to present images that shock and manipulate. Questions the artists engage with include: what aspects of a city's culture can and should be saved and shared? How can hundreds of years of history co-exist with current and future cultural practices? Can a newly created cultural hub ever be considered as authentic? An examination of heritage in its many forms - as physical, symbolic and traditional elements of urban reality - also informs how these cities are perceived by those from outside. What does tourism mean for cities of the Arab region and how abstracted is the virtual tourism fed to us by the media?
Considering the questions above, the works included in New Ends, Old Beginnings reveal features of, and help describe current responses to, the situation of cultural heritage in the Arab region through a contemporary lens. Works included in the exhibition have been carefully selected and commissioned to reference the specific themes of heritage, cultural industry and tourism, and to take into consideration the practices involved in protecting, maintaining, re-evaluating and perceiving heritage via art.
This exhibition has been supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, Liverpool City Council, Zenith Foundation, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool Culture Company, Esmee Fairbairn.
Galleries at the Bluecoat:
Open daily, 10.00am – 6.00pm
0151 702 5324
info@thebluecoat.org.uk
www.thebluecoat.org.uk
the Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BX
Open Eye Gallery
Open Tue – Sat, 10.30am – 5.30pm
Closed Sun – Mon
0151 709 9460
info@openeye.org.uk
www.openeye.org.uk
Open Eye Gallery, 28 – 32 wood Street, Liverpool L1 4AQ
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