Emily
Jacir: accumulations
February 26 – April 9, 2005
132 Tenth Avenue • Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm
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EXHIBITION: Emily Jacir: accumulations
DATES: February 26 – April 9, 2005
LOCATION: 132 Tenth Avenue between 18th and 19th
HOURS: Tuesday – Saturday 10am to 6pm
Alexander and Bonin is pleased to announce accumulations,
Emily Jacir’s first exhibition with the gallery. Presented in formats
that range from poetic to documentary, recurrent themes addressed by Jacir
are borders, issues of movement, dislocation, radical displacement and
resistance. The works in her new exhibition can be seen as ruminations
on borderless formats and performative actions.
Included in the forthcoming exhibition will be Inbox (2004-05)
a single work comprised of approximately forty paintings, each the size
of a standard, 11 x 8 ½ inch, sheet of paper. Using oil paint,
Jacir painstakingly transcribed selected email correspondence she has
collected since 1998 onto individual wood panels. Collectively, these
selections from her archive represent an expanded moment in time as well
as a narrative of world events, both cultural and political. A diary written
by others, Inbox, ranges from serious to humorous and is ultimately autobiographical.
This work was originally commissioned by Kunstraum, Innsbruck.
Ramallah/New York, a two channel video, was shot in 2004
and is informed by the artist’s experience of living in Ramallah
and New York for the past six years. The video, a kind of experimental
documentary, interweaves images of travel agencies, hairdressers, delis,
shwarma shops, and arghile bars in both sites, whilst recording the movement
of people to and from these two locales. Collectively, they record the
spaces between war, exile and destruction, and preserve an account of
steadfastness. It is a record of local, public and daily exchange in both
sites and between them. In this work, Jacir documents a specific time
which takes place in daily life as opposed to the official representations
and narratives of history, CNN or Al-Jazeera. Ramallah/New York examines
both the safety and familiarity of interiors as well as their entrapment
and claustrophobia and is an homage to the transcendence of spaces beyond
official borders and actual sites.
In 2003, Jacir exhibited Where We Come From, a series of
text and photo works that documented the response and action generated
by the question to fellow Palestinians: “If I could do anything
for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” Nearly 30 requests
were completed and are visually demonstrated in photographs exhibited
alongside the request and origins of each individual. First exhibited
at Debs & Co., New York, Where We Come From, has subsequently been
shown in Ramallah, Istanbul, Oxford and Bremen. A portion of the work
was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. The complete series is on view
at the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita through March 6th.
Emily Jacir works in a wide variety of mediums which have
included video, photography, drawing and sculpture. Born in Bethlehem
in 1970, she studied at University of Dallas at Irving, Memphis College
of Art and the Whitney Independent Study Program. She lives and works
in New York and Ramallah. Her work will be included in the forthcoming
Sharjah International Biennial- Session 7.
For photographs or further information, please contact Alexis
Canter at 212/367-7474 or ac@alexanderandbonin.com. Additional information
and images can also be found on www.alexanderandbonin.com
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