Simone Fattal - Hans Ulrich Obrist

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Résumé :
Hans Ulrich Obrist leads readers into the world of path-breaking Syrian artist Simone Fattal in this intensely personal volume.

For over five decades, Simone Fattal (b. 1942, Damascus) has eschewed any singular form or subject in her wide-ranging practice. In this deeply personal volume, Fattal's close friend and confidante Hans Ulrich Obrist delves into the artist's past to explore the remarkable breadth of her body of work.

After studying philosophy, first in Beirut and then Paris, Fattal returned to Beirut in 1969 and began life as a painter--creating sensuous abstract works that diverged from the predominantly figurative paintings commonly exhibited in Lebanon at the time. In 1980, after a decade spent in Lebanon as a painter, Fattal fled the civil war, abandoned her painting practice, and settled in Sausalito, California, where she founded the revolutionary publishing house Post-Apollo Press. In 1988, after studying sculpture in San Francisco, Fattal was consumed by another wave of creativity that led her to pursue ceramic sculptures--a medium in which she continues to work to this day from her studio in Paris.

Alongside prose and interviews with Fattal by Obrist, a foreword by Dr. Omar Kholeif situates Fattal's early practice in the broader schema of art to emerge in West Asia, while an afterword by Rasha Salti delves into the influence of European and Arabic mythology on Fattal's artmaking.

Published by Sternberg Press in collaboration with artPost21

Biographie:
Hans Ulrich Obrist is Artistic Director of the Serpentine in London, and Senior Advisor at LUMA Arles. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Mus?e d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show World Soup (The Kitchen Show) in 1991, he has curated more than 350 exhibitions. His recent publications include Maria Lassnig: Letters (2020), Entrevistas Brasileiras: Volume 2 (2020), An Exhibition Always Hides Another Exhibition (2019), The Extreme Self: Age of You (2021), and 140 Ideas for Planet Earth (2021).

Sommaire:
Hans Ulrich Obrist leads readers into the world of path-breaking Syrian artist Simone Fattal in this intensely personal volume.

For over five decades, Simone Fattal (b. 1942, Damascus) has eschewed singular form or subject in her wide-ranging artistic practice. In this deeply personal biography, Fattal's close friend and confidante Hans Ulrich Obrist journeys with the artist across physical borders and through seats of imagination. Together they discuss the artist's remarkable early life in Syria, her coming-of-age in Lebanon, as well as her transcultural life in France. Wartime memory and exile in California, sow the seed for discussions regarding archaeology, history, and mythology.

Beginning her artistic life as a painter in 1969, Fattal initially created sensuous abstract works that diverged from the predominantly figurative paintings commonly exhibited in Lebanon at the time. In 1980, after a decade spent in Lebanon, Fattal fled the ongoing civil war, departing from painting, eventually settling in Sausalito, California, where she founded the revolutionary publishing house, Post-Apollo Press.

In 1988, after studying sculpture in San Francisco, Fattal was consumed by another wave of creativity that led her to pursue the creation of ambitious ceramic sculpture--a medium in which she continues to work in to this day from her studio in Paris.

Prose and interviews between Fattal and Obrist are annotated and introduced by Dr. Omar Kholeif, whose essay helps situate Fattal's multiple creative journeys. An afterword by author, curator, and filmmaker Rasha Salti entitled Warrior Women Fall From a Low Height pulses, both in its lyricism and its expressive desire to solder and suture histories, once fractious, back together.

Published in collaboration with artPost21...