In coproduction with
In partnership with
Ali Cherri
Le songe d’une nuit sans rêve
Le songe d’une nuit sans rêve (Dreamless Night) is the first solo exhibition by Ali Cherri, a Lebanese artist living in Paris, in an art institution in France.
The exhibition present the new video work The Watchman (2023), as well as a series of original sculptures and drawings, specially produced for the exhibition, which relate to the symbolic elements and characters of the film, as well as to the geographical and cultural landscape of Cyprus.
Shot in Louroujina, a small village in the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the film centers on the figure of a soldier who guards the southern border with the Greek-Cypriot-dominated Republic of Cyprus. During his long and tedious guards, the hills inhabited by the “enemy” become the scene of the soldier’s fantasies and daydreams.
The Watchman continues Ali Cherri’s critical investigation of border politics, geographies of violence, nation-building and the radical potential of the imagination. The artist also evokes the historical links of migration between Cyprus and Lebanon, as well as those between Nicosia, the divided capital of Cyprus, and Beirut, the artist’s hometown, which was also divided during the Lebanese civil war.
Curators: Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi
The Watchman is commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film, and co-produced by The Vega Foundation and KinoElektron. The film received additional support from Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, Robert Matta – Fondation RAM, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, and Frac Bretagne.
The exhibition Le Songe d’une nuit sans rêve (Dreamless night) was presented at GAMeC – Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporaneo, Bergame, from 8.10.2023 to 14.01.2024.
It is accompanied by a monographic catalog published by Lenz Press and produced by Galerie Imane Farès, Paris.
THE ARTIST
Ali Cherri (1976, Beirut). Lives in Paris (France).
Cherri’s work is inspired by artefacts and the natural world. His sculptures, drawings and installations explore the temporal shifts between ancient worlds and contemporary societies.
Using archaeological artefacts as a starting point, he investigates the boundaries of ideologies that underpin the foundations of nations and the myth of national progression. His work explores the links between archaeology, historical narrative and heritage, considering the processes of excavation and relocation of cultural objects into museums.
Recent solo exhibitions include Envisagement, Giacometti Foundation, Paris (2024), Humble and quiet and soothing as mud (Swiss Institute, 2023), Ceux qui nous regardent (CAC La Traverse, 2023), If you prick us, do we not bleed? (National Gallery, 2022), Return of the Beast (Imane Farès, 2021), Tales from the Riverbed (Clark House, 2018), From Fragment to Whole (Jönköping County Museum, 2018), Programme Satellite 10: Somniculus (CAPC Centre d’art contemporain de Bordeaux and Jeu de Paume, 2017), A Taxonomy of Fallacies: The Life of Dead Objects (Sursock Museum, 2016).
His work has recently been exhibited at the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia), Jameel Arts Center (Dubai), Para Site (Hong Kong), MAXXI (Rome), Centre Pompidou (Paris), 5th Kochi Biennale (2023), 15th Sharjah Biennale (2023), 59th Venice Biennale (2022), Manifesta 13 (Marseille, 2020), the 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art (Ekaterinburg, 2019), the 8th Melle International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2018) and the 13th Sharjah Biennial (2017). Ali Cherri was awarded the Silver Lion for his participation in the international exhibition at the 59th Venice International Biennale of Contemporary Art in 2022.
Image : Ali Cherri, The Watchman, 2023 (capture-détail) © Ali Cherri.
Courtesy of the artist, In Between Art Film Foundation and Galerie Imane Farès Paris