CHERRI, Ali; PACHER, Jeanette (ed.)
Ali Cherri

How can we talk about violence against bodies, objects or nature in regions of conflict? What acts of brutality lie beneath these landscapes? And how to reflect on Western knowledge production and belief systems as a story of violence?

With his films, sculptures, installations and drawings, Ali Cherri visualizes history and cultural value not as something neutral or universal, but as constructed narratives, deeply influenced by colonialism, nationalism and geopolitics. Cherri was born in Beirut in 1976, a year into the Lebanese Civil War that would continue for fourteen more (1975–1990). During its course, about 120,000 people died and almost one million were forced to leave the country. But Cherri, who was initially trained as a graphic designer, experienced the vibrant heyday of Beirut’s art scene in the 1990s. Thus, not only the conceptual and material engagement with violence, but also the belief in the power of imagination as a political force carries his work.

In Cherri’s work, political implications are not only evident on a symbolic level, but also in the choice of artistic materials themselves. He is especially interested in mud, a primordial material of civilization in the production of commodities but also of art and cult objects. Only recently, he has begun to work with bronze, primarily used by ruling classes for monuments of “heroes” that shall manifest the power and dominance of the current regime. By combining these contrasting materials in a new series of works, the artist turns the classical power dynamic upside down: the moisture of the fragile, “inferior” mud aggresses and weakens the “hegemonial,” lasting bronze—a reclamation of power.

This publication, released in conjunction with the artist’s solo show at Secession, Wien, contains an essay by Tom Houlton, author of the book Monuments as Cultural and Critical Objects, and a conversation between Ali Cherri and the curators Emma Dean and Jeanette Pacher, and an extensive image spread with blow-ups of the slides from the new work A Monument to Subtle Rot. Each dust jacket has been individually treated by the artist and contains a sample of mud, a material so important to Cherri. The small square placed in the center shows the visible traces of this manual work. [publishers’ note]

Published by Secession, 2024
Design by Sabo Day
Artists' Books