Now; 1992
2019 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Dimensions variable (Set of 10 drawings)
Ali Yass
Now; 1992 is Ali Yass’s attempt to remake his childhood drawings, which were lost after he was forced to leave Iraq following the 2003 US occupation. The drawings are chimeric compositions of animated limbs, animal, human, and machine, that seem to hurl in all directions and mediums, unified as colorful figurations posed against blank backgrounds, rendering the curious characters suspended in time. This suspension materializes the artist’s view on violence and temporality, on which he has claimed: “I will not talk about war because it is from the past. But I will talk about resistance because it is ‘now’; that now which is deferred forever.” Yass refers to these figures as “post-disaster beings” or beings in the midst of disaster—though they may appear friendly or even comical, they are also traumatized by violence. The artist explains that he is not interested in retelling history with this work, as he poignantly remark about the moment Baghdad fell: “I didn’t think of that day as a rebirth, but rather a ground zero.” Instead, this work is an attempt to understand and represent history through the lens of Yass’s personal, embodied knowledge, specifically regarding the imagery and feelings that he can recall from the events he experienced as a child.
Ali Yass is a painter and filmmaker whose work entangles personal and collective memory in its psycho-affective interrogation of power. Though sometimes experimenting with video and text, Yass’s drawing process remains the most embodied and autobiographical part of his practice, using the blank paper to channel the atrocities of the Iraq war that he witnessed as a child.Yass carries his process on the move, generating collage-esque figures from the varying energetic paces and sensory impressions his movement entails. Yass’s work engages with the concepts of resistance, documentation, and the representation of fear.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Weekly Picks: Indonesia (22 - 27 October 2018) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do October 22, 2018 Top Picks of Indonesia art events in Jakarta and Bali from 22-27 October 2018 Don Quixote is a work that continues to be talked about and interpreted since it was first written in 1615...
© » KADIST
Con Raúl Anguiano, Ramiro Ávila, Guy Ben-Ner, Guillermo Chávez Vega, Elena Damiani, Edith Dekyndt, Gabriel Figueroa, Florencia Guillén, Kiyo Gutiérrez, Binelde Hyrcan, Karrabing Film Collective, Natalia Lasalle-Morillo, Charles Lim, José Clemente Orozco, Fernando Palomar, Thao Nguyen Phan, Daniela Ramírez, Enrique Ramírez, Alicia Smith, Sriwhana Spong, Chanell Stone y Ana Vaz...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Podcast 101: M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2022 | ArtsEquator Skip to content ArtsEquator’s theatre podcast is back in 2022, with critics Lee Shu Yu, Matthew Lyon and Naeem Kapadia in a post-show conversation about three productions at M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2022: The Essential Playlist by The Second Breakfast Company (Singapore), Being: 息在 by 微 Wei Collective and Collaborators (Singapore) and OK Land by Circle Theatre (Thailand)...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
AE x Goethe-Institut Critical Writing Micro-Residency: Meet the Writers (Part 1) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints May 8, 2021 We recently announced our selected resident writers for the inaugural AE x Goethe-Institut Critical Writing Micro-Residency, focusing on the development and promotion of critical writing about arts and culture in Southeast Asia...
© » KADIST
Amy Balkin
2012Data mining is a computer software process that can involve the neutral or benign analyzing of internet data for patterns, however, it can also imply the more sinister activities of surveillance or subject-based information gathering...
© » KADIST
Chris Wiley
2012Architectural details become abstracted renderings in Chris Wiley’s inkjet prints 11 and 20 (both 2012)...
© » TWOCOATSOFPAINT
NYC Selected Gallery Guide: Dec 2023 – Two Coats of Paint Bortolami: Jutta Koethe in “ Good Luck Spot ” Hey galleries and artists! If you have enjoyed being included in our NYC Selected Gallery Guide and find it a helpful way to get the word out to promote your exhibitions, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Two Coats of Paint ...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
International Women's Day: Inspiring Women | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles March 6, 2020 By ArtsEquator For International Women’s Day, ArtsEquator asked 11 women arts leaders in SEA to tell us about a woman who has inspired, supported or mentored them on their arts journey...
© » KADIST
Cristóbal Lehyt
2016Cristóbal Lehyt has conducted thorough research on the historical and cultural complexity of the northern region of Chile where the Atacama Desert is located...