Kirjahaku

Wael Shawky (born 1971) is one of the most fascinating contemporary Arab artists. He investigates history, its interpretations and the ways in which the past influences the present. This catalog is dedicated to his research on the history of the Crusades, embodied in his environments, films, sculptures and drawings. These works, narrated from an Arab point of view, shed new light on the roots of some of the major cultural and sociopolitical crises of today. This catalog includes a new artist's project consisting of drawings realized in dialog with Heinrich von Kleist's essay "On the Marionette Theater" (1810), as well as new critical essays by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Laura U. Marks and a conversation between Marcella Beccaria and the artist. Together with archival materials and works related to Shawky's film series Cabaret Crusades, the catalog presents a scholarly exhibition chronology.

Over the last four decades video art has undergone numerous transformations. If in its early years, during the mid sixties, video was used by artists to record performances created in an isolated studio, it also offered an important creative environment which defined new spaces and an alternative language to the mass codes used by television. In the ‘80s video took on the form of a projected image that was capable of defining a totally new type of space inside which spectators could move while surrounded by a hypnotic electronic embrace. More recently with digital technology artists can compete with the magic of cinema and develop a singularly fertile exchange with it that has been fundamental in developing the poetic language of video works today.

This volume examines the work of Francesco Vezzoli. Vezzoli creates video works and needlepoints that bring together pop culture icons, auteur cinema, art history, fashion, kitsch and camp.