photo by Christian Schuller



Don't let the beautiful colors fool you, who would draw Goofy inside the rooms of grownups? And 2021


Page "21"​
​Commissioned for Künstlerhaus Mousonturm
As part of “This is not Lebanon” curated by Matthias Lilienthal and Rabih Mroueh.

Performance/Installation
Duration: approx. 45 Min.
Language: English and Arabic with english subtitles.


Photography by : Christian Schuller.
Translated by : Samar Al Summary.
Sown by : Diana Cantarey
Music by : Charbel Haber


There are criminals who commit unimaginable acts and live innocent lives, since they cannot picture what they have done.” The artist Ali Eyal attempts to speak to their conscience in a performative intervention, by infiltrating their private spaces. In an act of revenge, he paints the living room walls of “No Name”. 

The family photographs and the pictures of his children skating on ice, he used them during the course of the investigation and dislocation of the shoulder. A large part of the accomplishment of this forced confession was due to the pictures. For me, one of the most extreme forms of agonizing torture was when he lead you to the room solely reserved for the plants named the Queen of the Night Flower. He dove deep into the plant and its benefits for the rooms where it finishes off something I don't remember now which it found inside carpets and furnishings, and necessitates the plants be plants in scorching light in dark rooms in order for their pretty white flowers to grow.

For the first time, my eyelids and my childish face bite and feed my memories. In my eyelid, the corner of the rooms and farm metamorphosed into jungles. Under my eye is a wall, the wall which we lean on. We half painted it, remember? My eye soaked in the mud tones. The dry branches of our trees bear pictures, tables, and my grandfather's taxidermied birds. Who will give me the chance to be emotional without melancholy? Like the village's river running without romanticism. How melancholy it is without melancholia. It drags the days, tree limbs, and worn-out clothes. When a shirt wears thin, a stone jumps out from deep within a pocket's interior.

The stone says:
The bird has a nest, and I am a young girl roving and scattered over the face of the earth The fish relaxes in the calm water and I am without a home
The dog places his haunches on the doorstep, and I don't have a doorstep
The bull has his stall, and I don't
The cow has a place to recline, and I don't
The sheep has a corral, and I don't
The fox has a place to sleep, and I do not


For all of you, I wrote this section for with my pure pen, from the depths of my soul.
In this narration, I'm the painter. I visited the house of No Name who lived at the end of the farm. I decided to visit his house and to paint all of his walls. I'll draw what he is accused of; the visual artists and the police and everyone who knows his passion for shotguns. With an invitation from my relatives. I learned that he killed my father or buried him, or perhaps fed his body to wild dogs. One of my ideas was to paint a mural of giants in the living room. I wanted the faces inside the murals to drag him. Faces of the dozens which were murdered or lost in his private parties, even the cows, geese, dogs had a role in the picture. I was able to imagine their eyes following him in all directions. The walls were
ancient and it was almost not possible to paint on them. I finished those pictures. Soon he would discover my revenge. One of the paintings of the lost victims appeared. I proceeded to copy their faces from old photos gathered from many families. Maybe soon these creatures would haunt him. I finished with the painting. I started embroidering on his couch. I called him to show him what I'd finished.

“No one's like you! Look at this genuine creativity.” He introduced me proudly to every killer in the village, all of them, and he didn't forget to tell any of them that the work was flawless. I hid the paintings and the couch, my thoughts suppressing their revenge. After a year, he was tortured by my paintings; he lost his mind. He reached the end of his life in a way no one could have predicted. Finally, he burned everything: the paintings, his house, himself. 






Special thanks to Bokja and Christian Zahr

Co-produced by Frankfurt LAB, Mousonturm and with Ashkal Alwan.






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​