There Is No Right Or Wrong Here
Marfa’ is pleased to announce Ahmad Ghossein’s first solo exhibition in Beirut, There Is No Right Or Wrong Here.
Starting from a piece of land without a trace, Ahmad Ghossein’s project aims to question the conceptions of space, land, and its thickness – or the limits of its depths before it can be considered ‘underground’ in South Lebanon. This part of the country has no official cadastral record and no information about it exists in the Directorate of Land Registration and Cadasters in Lebanon. Cadastral surveys were considered one of the foundational tools for ‘modernizing’ a country, registering and classifying the demarcations between public and private property, and did not only imply enabling the planning and implementation of modern infrastructure, but also organizing private property, and thus introducing a new “objective” or “scientific” ordering of social, economic and political relations. Ahmad Ghossein starts from a personal experience and looks into the implications of such missing data, investigating the states’ practices and processes in relation to cartography, geodesy, hypsometry, and other related sciences.
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Ahmad GhosseinObsession, 2017InstallationDimensions variableCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Ahmad GhosseinThe Shadow, 2017Inkjet on glass80 x 120 cmEdition of 3 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Ahmad GhosseinThe Point Or One of the Government’s Secrets, 2017Metal Rod7.5 x 10.5 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Ahmad GhosseinDraft Zero , 2017Lightbox, acetate sheet38 x 53 cmCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Ahmad GhosseinCabinet of Aerial Images, 2017Inkjet print on Epson Hot Press158 x 125 cm (framed)Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Ahmad GhosseinCabinet of Aerial Images, 2017Inkjet print on Epson Hot Press
74.5x42.5 cm
Editions of 5+2APCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Ahmad GhosseinCabinet of Aerial Images, 2017Inkjet print on Epson Hot Press122 x 82 cm
Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist -
Ahmad GhosseinCabinet of Aerial Images , 2017Inkjet print on Epson Hot Press58.7 x 42.2 cm (Framed)Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofsCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Ahmad GhosseinThe Last Cartographer in the Reuplic, 2017Video16 minCourtesy of Marfa’ ProjectsCopyright The Artist
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Ahmad GhosseinSeven Movements , 2017Inkjet on glass30x30x150 cm
Edition of 3 plus 2 APCourtesy 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 that 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.
