Larvae Channel 2
Wael ShawkyMay 01, 2009 – June 21, 2009
Opening: March 31, 2009 from 19:00 to 21:00
Project Gentili, Berlin is pleased to present Larvae Channel 2, by Wael Shawky (b. 1971, Alexandria, Egypt). The exhibition furthers the artist’s work on the universal themes of regionally entangled cultures, religions and politics. Shawky defines himself as a translator and his works as indicative of the current situation. “I have been aiming to construct a hybridized society. A system of a society in transition, a condition that is not clear, a translation.”
Larvae Channel 2 considers migration as a poetic platform for self-perception. In the exhibition, the main link between video, drawing and sculpture is the primacy of human translation. The 10-minute animated video Larvae Channel 2, is based on an interview shot by the artist in Souf Palestinian refugee camp, Jordan; Using the rotroscope animation technique, every frame of the interview has been traced. This process of media-migration permits all of the marginal unseen details of the interview to become essential and crucial. The difficulties of tracing frame by frame are paralleled by the labor-intensive construction of model buildings made of tarmac and galvanized wire.
Wael Shawky has exhibited internationally at museums and institutions including Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, 2008; 7th Santa Fe Biennale, Santa Fe, NM, 2008; SCENES DU SUD II, Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes, 2008; Medium Religion, ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2008; 2nd Riwaq Biennale, Palestine, 2007; 2nd Moscow biennale, 2007; Kunstmuseum Bonn, 2007; 9th International Istanbul Biennial, 2005; The Museum of Modern Art Rome, MACRO, 2005; ADAM, Smart Project Space, Amsterdam, 2005; Normalization, Platform Granti of Contemporary Art, Istanbul, 2005; 50th Venice Bienniale, 2003.