Current

Artissima 2024
Turin

1 – 3 November 2024

Frieze London
D16
9 – 13 October 2024

Ali Eyal & David Horvitz
A new garden from old wounds
11 SEP - 9 NOV 2024


CONTACT


Photo by Issac Lythgoe


An Indefinite appearance or two walls and, 2022



Page '23'
​Commissioned for Fondation FIMINCO
As part of  “Her memory in the empty house, blows like a breeze through the white curtains”
Curated by Yomna Osman​
We found traces of the streaming humidity between the walls of the home resultant from continuous tears resulting from the uprooting of poisonous trees and the murder of some of the inhabitants. In 2007, I suggested that I paint the walls and move the place of the old furnishings on the slim hope that from between the fog of tears it would change the course of memories by a hair's breadth. The walls were corroded. In these houses, where was no air or light and no tranquillity on the inside.

In movement of painter's brush on the wall is a resemblance to the movement of Jules Lequier's hand, when he moved it near a hornbeam tree—this happened when he was a boy—and this movement caused a bird to fly, which led to a falcon pouncing upon it and tearing it to shreds. It was the starting point for his study in hidden causes. My mother used this self-same reasoning to make us children forget the sitting places of those we missed; she moved the order of the furnishings, where the plates were stored, or the table stood, and such minute changes left us feeling refreshed, as though we had bought a new home.
The families were convinced that photographs would protect them from the American army and the militias, that it was within the power of these images to allow you to live inside them for a short period. For this reason, my mother hung different pictures, some of George Bush and some of a local militia leader. You could become the American flag behind the president for a specified period and also to become one of the bodyguards behind the militia leader.

Meanwhile, I was starting to line up the tile on the wall inside the room that doesn't indicate what it is or what it will be, when I saw a child paste a photograph revealing a child looking at a raging fire between the scratches that were spread previously all over the photo, and then the boy disappeared inside the picture. American soldiers stormed the abandoned farm searching for unregistered weapons. My mother gave me a butter knife to remove the photograph of the British soldier, just outside his tank, trying to get away with the raging fire on his back. The photograph was really stuck to the wall. There was very little time. They stormed the house. I wasn't able to wipe anything from the photograph.

What I didn't understand is that the scratches exist prior to what takes place. In 2022, I emerged from the picture inside an art gallery in France, Chigaco and Los Angeles.




Bellyman, LA. Photo by Kort Havens

Artworks

Look what I remember, a new garden from old wounds and Just a group school photo, but.. Tonight’s Programmem is Painting Size 80x60cm.Paper, pen, map in a pocket and my mom surprised me to show me a 2000 calendar, but what did I show my mom? The Blue Ink Pocket? and An Indefinite appearance or two walls and 6x9 doesn’t fit everything and Don't let the beautiful colors fool you, who would draw Goofy inside the rooms of grownups? And Where do the walls of the museum go when they are forgotten? Where does a thought go when it's forgotten? Autumn Solo Show. Berlin's drawing's pad. No Part Of This Book May Be Reproduced, In Any Way, By Photocopying, Recording, Or Otherwise, Except With The Prior Written Consent Of The Publisher, and  


Solo Shows


From the creases of my eyelid, In the head's sunrise and In the head's dusk there’s retrieving an Obscured Present/Presence


Text-Reviews    Publication


Ali Eyal (b.1994) is an artist working with painting, drawing, and video to explore the relationships between personal history, transitory memories, politics, and identity. Eyal is currently featured in Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023). Eyal's solo exhibitions include In the Head's Sunrise, Brief Histories, New York (2023); In the Head's Dusk, SAW Gallery, Ottawa (2023). Recent group exhibitions include, Is It Morning for You Yet?, the 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2023); Surviving the Long Wars: Reckon and Reimagine, Chicago Cultural Center (2023); Documenta 15, Kassel (2022); Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, MoMA PS1, New York (2020); How to Reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing, Beirut Art Center, Lebanon (2019). Eyal’s video work is included in the 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil: Memory is an Edition Station, São Paulo (forthcoming October 2023); Rencontres Internationales, Paris; VITRINE x Kino Screenings, London; Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation; and Cairo Video Festival, Medrar, Cairo. His works are in the collection of Kadist, Paris; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah. Eyal earned an undergraduate degree from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad (2015), he currently lives and works in Los Angeles.






PORTFOLIO PDF




Born in 1994 in Baghdad, Iraq. Lives and works in Los Angeles, USA

Education

  • 2016 - 2017  | HWP/Home Workspace, Independent Study Program, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon.
  • 2011 - 2015   | Diploma, Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad.

Solo Exhibitions 

2024
  • Retrieving an Obscured Present/Presence, Bellyman, LA, US.
  • From the Creases of my Eyelid, The Quebec City BiennIal, Quebec, CA
2022
Selected Group Exhibitions

2024
  • Undoing Images I, Akademie der künste, Colonge, DE
  • A new garden from old wounds, ChertLüdde, Berlin, DE.
  • Display, Ehrlich Steinberg, LA, US.
  • Babel, Sara’s Dukunsthalle, NYC.
  • Hope Dies Last, Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto, CA. 
  • The David Hammons, Frieze show, curated by Suzy Halajian, LA, US. 
  • Crystal Clear, Bayt AlMamzar, Dubai, UAE.

2023
  • 4.5 Billion Years, Brief Histories, NYC, US.
  • Surviving the Long Wars, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, US.
  • Archival Assebly #2 at the Betonhalle, silent green, Berlin، curated by Ala Youins and Maha Maamoun. How to know what's really happening. Berlin, DE.
  • 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil | "Memory is an Editing Station"
  • 15th Sharjah Biennale, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, U.A.E.
2022 
  •  The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, US.
  • Documenta 15 - Sada [regroup], Kassel, DE. ​
  • Crossings: Itineraries of Encounter, Blackwood Gallery. Toronto, CA.
  • How to maneuver: Shape-shifting texts and other publishing tactics, isdaT — Institute of arts and design of Toulouse. Curated by Ala Youins and Maha Maamoun | Toulouse, FR
2021
  • This Is Not Lebanon, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm. Curated by Matthias Lilienthal, Rabih Mroué, Christine Thomé (Ashkal Alwan), Anna Wagner (Künstlerhaus Mousonturm), Jaan Bossier, Uwe Dierksen, Christian Hommel (Ensemble Modern). Kuratorische Mitarbeit: Friederike Kötter | Frankfurt, DE.
  • Hamds, The Akademie der Künste. Curated by MADHUSREE DUTTA, ALA YOUNIS  | Cologne, DE .      

2020
  • Online screening. Aashra, Ashkal Alwan. Curated by Ashkal Alwan | Beirut, LB
  • Online exhibition. Triennale Tres Pesos, Mexico, MX City.
  • Online exhibtion. Viral Self-Portraits, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova | +MSUM, Slovenia, LJU
  • How to reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing, MMAG Foundation, Amman, JO
2019
  • How to maneuver: Shape-shifting texts and other publishing tactics, Warehouse 421, Abut Dhabi, UE, curated by Kayfa ta, Ala Youins and Maha Maamoun.
  • Screening, Kino, Bermondsey as part of VITRINE x Kino Screenings. London, UK ​
  • Screening, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin video library at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Berlin, DU
  • ​Screening, theme Less, time less, discipline less, form less. The James Black Gallery, Mexico, MX City.
  • Collective exhibition, Beirut Art Center. touché! (gestures, movement, action), Beirut, LB
  • Screening, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin video library
  • Screening, I am BP, King of Exploitation, King of Injustice, P21 Gallery, London, UK
  • Screening, Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UE

2018  
  • Screening, Immaterial Collection Forum IV: States of Being, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, LB
2017 
  • ​Audio piece, Collective Task, Baghdad, Baghdad, IQ
  • Open Studio, HWP 2016-17, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, LB

2015  
  • TARKIB Installation Exhibition, Baghdad, IQ
  • Group Show, 1010Hall The ARt House, Nicosia, CY
  • Build Peace conference, Nicosia, CY
  • 6th FIVAC, International Video Art Festival, Camaguey, CU.

2013 
  • Screening, Cairo Video Festival, Medrar, Cairo, EG
  • Al-Mutanabbi Street exhibition, Baghdad, IQ
  • ​Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. US.                        
  • Screening, Iraqi Independent Film Center, Baghdad, IQ

2011
  • Nakhla Gallery, Baghdad, IQ

Collections

2022

  • Kadist Art Foundation, Paris, FR 













Ali Eyal 2024 ​© All Rights Reserved​