Pépites d'or
The ADG (Association de Développement de Gemmayzé), near the bottom of Escalier St Nicolas, currently presents two greatly contrasting photography exhibits by Lara Baladi and Joumana Jamhouri.
Jamhouri's work, titled "Industrie: L'autre regard" first offers itself to the eye in a series of compositions capturing an unusual subject matter: the innards of Lebanese factories. Jamhouri's path brought her there by luck, she says: although touched by the virus of photography since she was ten years old, it is only after the birth of her second child, when she had reached a technical ceiling, that she returned to college for her Master's in the domain. At the time she was living in New York, working in banking, but eventually she left her job to pick up photography as a career. She had returned to Lebanon when she was commissioned by SIDEM (Société pour l'Industrie des Métaux) a series of pictures for its catalogue. Though reluctant at first, she discovered the visual potential lying untapped in the industrial world. "That was my big break", says the 43 year old photographer. "After that every time I was asked to take industrial pictures, I would shoot a few extra ones for myself while on the job." Gradually she collected a number of views extracting beauty and aesthetic interest from such things as assembly lines and machines. Textures, light and movement are brought forward from a world of manmade objects. Jamhouri never expected to exhibit them: "I'm not an artist, I'm just a photographer having fun. And I'm lucky to do something I love!" Jamhouri would like to promote photography in Lebanon, as during her 28 years of living abroad she was able to note the at status it has reached in Europe and overseas. "Over here if a great photographer shows pictures to a client they'll think it's the norm, and if a crappy photographer shows pictures they'll also think it's the norm. People have to be taught to become picky."
Love and enthusiasm for photography may be the one common point between Jamhouri and Baladi. A member of the Fondation Arabe pour l'Image, whose work is displayed in European institutions such as Fondation Cartier, Baladi started taking photos in earnest when she returned to the Middle East after a long time spent between London and Paris. She therefore tied photography to the Arab world, and along the years, since 95, she would often find herself with pictures that she had to set aside: "There are few professional labs in Egypt where I am based, so it was difficult to exploit those shots technically." This went on until she had the opportunity to work with a developer specialized in peculiar techniques, which gave her a chance to bring out those images. The result is her unusual exhibit, "Le Banquet", set up in the inner room. Two portfolios await on a table covered with a long cloth; a pair of white gloves is set next to each one for the visitors to wear before they enter Baladi's world. The first portfolio, titled "Aroussa Baladi" as a pun between her name and a term meaning "popular bride-doll", features closely cropped images of women from Gaza to Cairo, whose faces are not shown but only details of their carefully colour-coordinated costumes and hands. The ten pictures, specially printed on artistic paper, begin with the erotic note of a strass slip and end on its polar opposite, the gloved hand of a woman holding a spoon in which Baladi's reflection can be seen. This creates a transition to the second portfolio, "Larabesque", which enters the artist's personal cycle. As an arabesque consists in the repetition with endless variations of one motif, so does this series repeat the motif of the photographer's own legs and feet from an angle of vision that is both familiar (since we all share it) and disorienting. Colour again plays a major role: "I've always opted for an exaggerated and saturated, Fuji-like quality of colour as opposed to the more realistic hues of Kodak. I dedicate a lot of work to colours and costumes."
The design of the boxes, the set-up and the title of the exhibit are not gratuitous: "A banquet is an offering, with the idea of consumption. At the end of the day these are female bodies shown in these boxes, whose flesh is about to be consumed." It is however a constant in her work to always looks for interactive ways of presenting her work. "It's important to me to treat photos other than in frames on a wall. A framed picture has no more substance, it is a simple image and no longer an object." Baladi prefers her public to be confronted with a work that is not distanced from them, and with which they can have a rapport of touch and not merely of gaze.
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Article by Joumana Medlej |