Serotonin, Benzine and a Renegade Body
27 September 2023 - 7 December 2023
An unrelenting weight on my chest. I tried Yoga and breathing exercises. I tried changing my sleep positions, places, moving houses. I stopped drinking, quit smoking. I started running, working out. Maybe a glass of whiskey before sleep. I tried all kinds of soothing herbs. Picked up smoking again, to calm me down. I tried to find the perfect recipe for respite. The words from the film Beirut the Encounter echo in my head: “Endless noise. I switched friends, changed cities, and still this noise haunts me.” The same events keep repeating themselves in different ways, from one catastrophe to the next. I started making paper clippings from Lebanese lira, it’s value equaling the money I once had in the bank. I started pouring resin, shredding rubber. I spent days collaging pieces of Beirut’s dark map. I rubbed off so many faces until they faded. I erased all our faces from the pictures of the protests. I kept rubbing them until our features disappeared. We were all gone; only the intelligence agent and his camera remained. Mixed media as evidence, as testaments of the last period.
-
Ahmad GhosseinA Sealed Gallon 2 , 2023ResinVariable DimensionsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Ahmad GhosseinA Sealed Gallon 3 , 2023ResinVariableCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinA Sealed Gallon, 2023ResinVariableCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinA Sealed Gallon, 2023ResinVariableCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinA Sealed Gallon, 2023ResinVariableCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinA Sealed Gallon, 2023ResinVariableCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinA Sealed Gallon, 2023ResinVariableCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinHow to make your money sell, 2023Lebanese Pounds cutout on wooden beams, original bank statement for savings accountVariable DimensionsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinFragments from Beirut 2019..., 2023Rubber, EVA foam320 x 250 cmEdition of 3Courtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinFor Different Use, 2023Copper60 x 40 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinFilming Him Filming Me 1, 2023Mixed media on paper35 x 35 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinFilming Him, Filming Me 2, 2023Mixed media on paper35 x 35 cm
-
Ahmad GhosseinFilming Him, Filming Me 3 , 2023Mixed media on paper35 x 35 cm
-
Ahmad GhosseinFilming Him, Filming Me 4, 2023Mixed media on paper35 x 35 cm
-
Ahmad GhosseinFilming Him, Filming Me 5, 2023Mixed media on paper35 x 35 cm
-
Ahmad GhosseinFilming Him, Filming Me 6, 2023Mixed media on paper35 x 35 cm
-
Ahmad GhosseinThe Intelligence and His Camera 1, 2023Inkjet on Epson semi matt photo paper (manipulated by hand)35 x 62 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinThe Intelligence and His Camera 2, 2023Inkjet on Epson semi matt photo paper (manipulated by hand)35 x 62 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinThe Intelligence and His Camera 4, 2023Inkjet on Epson semi matt photo paper (manipulated by hand)35 x 62 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinThe Intelligence and His Camera 3, 2023Inkjet on Epson semi matt photo paper (manipulated by hand)35 x 62 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
-
Ahmad GhosseinThe Intelligence and His Camera 5, 2023Inkjet on Epson semi matt photo paper (manipulated by hand)
35 x 62 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Ahmad GhosseinThe Intelligence and His Camera 6, 2023Inkjet on Epson semi matt photo paper (manipulated by hand)
35 x 62 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
Ahmad Ghossein
Ahmad Ghossein is an artist and a filmmaker. He holds an MFA in Visual Art from the National Academy of Art-(KHIO) in Oslo and a BFA in Theater from the Lebanese University, Beirut. His practice utilizes a number of media, including video art, installation, art in public spaces, and film. The starting point of his work stems from the collecting and analyzing of facts, documents, and found footage and materials, which then feed into a body of work that draws on the potentialities of the moving image., he is interested in the connection between individual human experiences and shared historical and political realities. It is driven by personal and emotional experience but is essentially concerned with the larger political face of his time. His artworks include: There is No Right or Wrong Here/Solo exhibition/2017/Marfa Gallery Beirut, The Fourth Stage – Lebanon/2015/film/ Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation, when The Ventriloquist came and spoke to me, Performance, Homeworks7, Beirut. Relocating the Past, Ruins for the Future – Norway/2013/a public space project, You have to Swim, You have no choice – Lebanon and Norway/2012/Video/ Commissioned and nominated for the DnB Nor Sparebank Foundation Exhibition 2012, Oslo Art Association. Yesterday’s News - Solo exhibition - Kunstforening/2012/Oslo. This is not the news of today – Norway/2012/Video Ghossein’s feature film debut All This Victory, 2019, won the Grand Prize and the Audience Award at the Venice International Film Critics's Week. His short film, White Noise, which was produced under the auspices of “Lebanon Factory,” opened the Director’s Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival (La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs – Cannes) 2017. His Video work My Father Is Still a Communist, 2011, commissioned by Sharjah at Foundation was awarded best short film in Tribeca Doha Film Festival 2011 and was selected by MoMa and Berlinale and several festivals. His other short The Fourth Stage opened the Forum Expanded of the Berlinale Film Festival, Berlinale 2016. He was the co-artistic director of Beirut Art Center (2020-2021). Ahmad has directed several documentaries and short films. Other works include The Last Cartographer in the Republic (2017), Time Out, a feature documentary, Aljazeera Channel (2016) An Arab Comes to Town (2008), a documentary filmed in Denmark produced by DR2. He was awarded the Production Programme Award by the Sharjah Art Foundation in 2014, the Ibsen Scholarship Award in 2013, and the Art Residency, Inclusartiz Institution, Rio de Janeiro, 2018. Ghossein’s work has been exhibited in different museums and galleries and has been screened in various film festivals around the world including, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and New Museum in New York, Sharjah Biennial 12 and 10 by Sharjah Art Foundation, Center Pompidou in Paris, Oslo Kunstforening, Kunsthall in Oslo, With Koro (Uro) in Oslo, Ashkal Alwan’s Home Works in Beirut, SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, Nam June Paik Art Center in South Korea, Mucem museum in Marseille, Videobrazil 21 st Biennial, Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen, the Bétonsalon in Paris, the Haus am Waldsee art space in Berlin, Berlinale Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival, Oberhausen Film Festival, and the Fid Marseille Film Festival.
