Months ago, Beirut was on a technical date with “NaiveThe absurd, ironic title chosen by the Lebanese plastic artist Adham Al-Dimashqi (1990) for his exhibition. At that time, the audience’s eyes shifted between the different positions of “Godo”, the dog that the artist takes with him, where “Godo” leads the championship paintings With distinction, as if he is extending his tongue to a harsh reality that is difficult to repair.
Today, Al-Dimashqi returns with his painting to participate in the “Expo Bodrum for Contemporary Arts”, exhibition It bears the title “Sparrow”, which opened last Sunday in the Turkish city, and continues until the day following tomorrow. In an attempt to translate the act of immigration and its transformations that cut off from the same homeland, and dissipate the possibility of meeting once more, given that the heavy reality has not changed yet, despite the sarcasm of “Abit” and the lightness of “A bird” suggesting a journey towards salvation.
Flying is the subject that may first come to mind when we read the title of the exhibition, and this is undoubtedly true. There is no dream that has occupied man like him since time immemorial. Also, the context and the political situation in which Lebanon is going through suffocating crises put that dream in an elevated position, in which the ordinary citizen thinks. He misses him, as if he wishes to rise above the scene and look at him from above.
But the difference between dream and reality is nothing more than scissors, cutting this from that, cutting is the most shocking process, like waking up from a beautiful dream and the insight of existence around us, a journey from cohesion to dissipation, and this is the fate of the paintings in fact, visitors to the exhibition are invited to cut them and waste them Not to stand in front of the paintings and take a meditative stance only.
The Damascene leaves the scissors in front of his work, so that the different visitors from these birds come forward, and each of them cuts off the bird that suits him, traveling to an unknown destination. Is this declaring a victory for the scissors over the feather, and to undermine the construction, or to confirm that “a painting resembles the homeland, when it loses its identity, it turns into a fragile map or a canvas,” as the plasticine says in the statement of the press exhibition?
The comparison between “Asfour” and “Abit” remains somewhat tight, even if the fates are different. The color combination between them is on a large intersection in terms of dark frames occupied by golden and fiery centers, reminiscent of “Godo”, or perhaps “A bird” is one of the interpretations of that dog, through which the artist can harness the technique of dissipation without affecting his loyal friend any direct harm. , who knows?