Lot 518: f - Tarek Al Ghoussein , Gabonese B. 1962 Untitled 2/Looking at Palestine (From the Series 'Self Portrait') digital print

signed and dated 2003 on the reverse digital print

measurements note 60 by 80cm.; 23 2/3 by 31 1/2 in.

New York Times, USA, 4 May 2003, p. 1 (Art Section), illustration of another example in black and white
Grady Turner, 'Fast Forward in the Persian Gulf', in: Art in America, November 2003, p. 87, illustration of another example in colour
Tanya Klemm, in: Art Forum, Berlin, Germany, 2003, p. 18, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, Sharjah, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah International Biennial 6, 2003, p. 268, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, Leeuwarden, Fries Museum, Nazar: Photographs from the Arab World, 2004, p. 39, illustration of another example in colour
Berliner Zeitung, Germany, 25 October 2004, illustration of another example in colour
Frankfurter Rundschau, Germany, 23 October 2004, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, New York City, Aperture Gallery, Nazar: Photographs from the Arab World, 2004, p. 39, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, Bonn, Museum Of Modern and Contemporary Art, Languages of the Desert, 2005, p. 80, illustration of another example in colour
'Sans territoire', Liberation, France, 19 August 2005, p. 6, illustration of another example in colour
Exhibition Catalogue, Berlin, Kathi Kollwitz, Kathi Kollwitz Light Box Project, 2005, p. 95, illustration of another example in colour
'Focusing on The Arab World', Houston Chronicle, USA, 9 April 2005, illustration of another example in colour
Jocelyne Dakhlia, Des Art En Tensions, Paris 2006, p. 442, illustration of another example in colour

This work is number 4 from an edition of 6, plus 1 artist's proof.
Untitled 2-Looking at Palestine is an image from a series of self-portraits executed by the Palestinian artist Tarek al-Ghoussein, and is a protest against the labelling, and compartmentalising of an ethnic group. The work was first displayed on a lightbox at the Sharjah biennale, a medium that references television and advertising and highlights the way in which an audience is informed, perceives and assesses. A lone figure, its head wrapped in a Palestinian headscarf (kuffiyeh) gazes across the Dead Sea to its far shore. By utilising a specific symbol, in this case the headscarf, Al-Ghoussein creates an identity for the faceless, anonymous figure. One that takes precedence over the individual's personality. Here he demonstrates how a single attribute can condition one's interpretations of an event or situation through a perfectly natural, and yet dangerous, reasoning process. As a Palestinian himself, the artist's sympathies lie, unsurprisingly, with others of his race. Yet he does not cast the blame of misrepresentation entirely on the western media, but calls into account the so-called Arab brotherhood, shedding some light on the amplitude of harm caused by violent activists of Arab descent to the Palestinian 'cause'. Ironically to his mind, the struggle of his people is slowly being eroded by lasting associations, unconsciously forged, between terrorism and Palestinians. Indeed, during the process of staging the present work, the artist was detained by the local police due to the associations of his kuffiyeh. He remarked that "this has made me realise that perhaps myself and other Arabs need to question our own associations with the scarf, which has become a symbol of terrorism in its own right. The irony is that we may also be guilty of that which we condemn" (the artist in conversation with the expert). It was the futile cycle of the Sisyphean myth that inspired Al-Ghoussein to produce these images. Sisyphus is condemned to push a boulder up hill and watch it roll down every day for eternity, and the artist draws parallels between this endless cycle, and the continual violence that plagues his people. The lone, standing figure recalls the ruckenfigur of the nineteenth century romantic painters. Particularly Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich executed in 1818. There is a strong parallel between Friedrich's dark, lonely, anonymous figure, standing in a barren landscape upon a rocky outcropping, his isolation quite complete, and the black clad figure in this image. Even the setting recalls Friedrich's work, with a ring of stone and the void before the figures, in this case a sheet of water, in Friedrich's wispy cloud. What more potent association for the bereft and isolated exiled Palestinian in search for a homeland could there be than this romantic cliché?