Dor Guez
27 Sep - 26 Nov 2011
DOR GUEZ
Sabir
27 September – 26 November, 2011
SABIR is Dor Guez’s first solo exhibition at Dvir Gallery. It represents the first part in an ongoing project about the city of Jaffa, the second part of which will be shown in December at Dvir Gallery’sNahum street space.
“Sabir” comes from the Latin root “to know”, and refers to a vernacular shared by native speakers of many different languages who come in contact. The dialect’s vocabulary draws on all the regional languages, often distorting and reinventing words as they come in contact with the other tongues. The best known of the world’s Sabirs is the dialect of middle-eastern ports, which bears elements of French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese and Spanish. A sabir dialect is a result of a cultural development; it marks a new nation’s arrival.
Guez uses the term to introduce the first chapter of his new video piece. The subject of this chapter is Samira, whose family used to live on Jaffa port’s edge, only 200 meters from where the piece is on view at Dvir Gallery. Samira’s describes pre-1948 Jaffa, and the subsequent departure of most of the city’s Christian residents, in a mixture of her mother tongue – Arabic – and her later-acquired Hebrew. While most of her childhood memories are recounted in Arabic, the war and its consequences are described in Hebrew. In the background, the sun sets peacefully against the Jaffa beach. The discrepancy between Samira’s story and the postcard background, with its everyday commotion of surfers, joggers and dog-walkers, is poignant. The sun’s height in the frame also serves as a visual marker of Samira’s story’s progress and of passing time.
Another piece, a triple image which is presented in the show, describes one site on Ajami’s beach in three different views and shutter speeds. The site used to be the neighborhood dump, and was recently leveled, planted, and turned into a park. Samira describes how there used to be only 100 stairs separating the sea from her house; today, the park’s land has encroached upon the shoreline and the sea has receded. Samira’s house has technically “moved away” from the sea. The city municipality has piled unleveled garbage remains and garbage swept in from the sea into a provisional mound, the subject of Guez’s triple image.
As much of Guez’s past projects (Lydd Ruins, Al-Monayer, The Nation’s Groves, the Christian- Palestinian archive, etc), SABIR touches on issues such as designing the regional landscape, original and copy, national and religious identity, testimony and memory. His artistic practice has been the subject of solo exhibitions in museums and other important venues worldwide, including: Petah-Tikvah Museum for Art, the Jewish Museum in New York, KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Beursschouwburg, Brussels. SABIR will be on view in conjunction with three other of Guez’s projects around the world: Scanogram #2 at the 12th Istanbul Biennial, The Nation’s Groves at Carlier Gebauer Gallery in Berlin, and Watermelons Under the Bed at the 17th International Contemporary Art Festival SESC, Videobrasil, São Paulo.
Sabir
27 September – 26 November, 2011
SABIR is Dor Guez’s first solo exhibition at Dvir Gallery. It represents the first part in an ongoing project about the city of Jaffa, the second part of which will be shown in December at Dvir Gallery’sNahum street space.
“Sabir” comes from the Latin root “to know”, and refers to a vernacular shared by native speakers of many different languages who come in contact. The dialect’s vocabulary draws on all the regional languages, often distorting and reinventing words as they come in contact with the other tongues. The best known of the world’s Sabirs is the dialect of middle-eastern ports, which bears elements of French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, Maltese and Spanish. A sabir dialect is a result of a cultural development; it marks a new nation’s arrival.
Guez uses the term to introduce the first chapter of his new video piece. The subject of this chapter is Samira, whose family used to live on Jaffa port’s edge, only 200 meters from where the piece is on view at Dvir Gallery. Samira’s describes pre-1948 Jaffa, and the subsequent departure of most of the city’s Christian residents, in a mixture of her mother tongue – Arabic – and her later-acquired Hebrew. While most of her childhood memories are recounted in Arabic, the war and its consequences are described in Hebrew. In the background, the sun sets peacefully against the Jaffa beach. The discrepancy between Samira’s story and the postcard background, with its everyday commotion of surfers, joggers and dog-walkers, is poignant. The sun’s height in the frame also serves as a visual marker of Samira’s story’s progress and of passing time.
Another piece, a triple image which is presented in the show, describes one site on Ajami’s beach in three different views and shutter speeds. The site used to be the neighborhood dump, and was recently leveled, planted, and turned into a park. Samira describes how there used to be only 100 stairs separating the sea from her house; today, the park’s land has encroached upon the shoreline and the sea has receded. Samira’s house has technically “moved away” from the sea. The city municipality has piled unleveled garbage remains and garbage swept in from the sea into a provisional mound, the subject of Guez’s triple image.
As much of Guez’s past projects (Lydd Ruins, Al-Monayer, The Nation’s Groves, the Christian- Palestinian archive, etc), SABIR touches on issues such as designing the regional landscape, original and copy, national and religious identity, testimony and memory. His artistic practice has been the subject of solo exhibitions in museums and other important venues worldwide, including: Petah-Tikvah Museum for Art, the Jewish Museum in New York, KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, Tel Aviv Museum of Art and Beursschouwburg, Brussels. SABIR will be on view in conjunction with three other of Guez’s projects around the world: Scanogram #2 at the 12th Istanbul Biennial, The Nation’s Groves at Carlier Gebauer Gallery in Berlin, and Watermelons Under the Bed at the 17th International Contemporary Art Festival SESC, Videobrasil, São Paulo.