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Casting Bread: Interactive Videos and
Photographs by Wafaa Bilal
Dean Jensen Gallery
759 N. Water Street
Through December 2, 2006
Technology and human emotion seem like strange
bedfellows; one is precise, scientific, calculated, and the
other unpredictable, vulnerable, and changeable. But these
elements come together in the work of Wafaa Bilal on view
at Dean Jensen Gallery.
Bilal is a native of Iraq, and as a young man had aspirations
to study painting. This plan was thwarted by official
sanction and instead he spent his time at university
studying geography. He began speaking out against the
regime of Saddam Hussein, and became a condemned
man. Escaping to a refugee camp, it was two years until he
was granted political asylum in the United States. He went
on to study photography at the University of New Mexico and
earned a graduate degree at the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago, where he is now a faculty member.
Part of the exhibition at the Dean Jensen Gallery is devoted
to selections from Bilal’s series called “The Human
Condition.” Created between 2000 and 2005, these large
scale photographs are mesmerizing in their emotive
qualities. Most of the photographs show figures in a barren
wasteland, only dry, cracked red earth in a desolate, empty
landscape. In this lonely place are figures; one photograph
shows an old man mired in the dry dirt up to his knees. In
another, Bilal himself, naked and bent under the weight of a
mosque strapped to his back. These images are
allegorical and autobiographical, and have the feeling of
surrealistic dreams or nightmares of hopelessness.
These are profound and moving, and unquestionably
realistic. And so how were they produced? The creative
process was labor intensive, as sets and scenarios were
developed in the studio. But, there is a good dose of
photographic manipulation as multiple images are
seamlessly integrated to produce these significant and
lasting impressions. The technological aspect in these
photographs adds to their power and humanity rather than
detracting in a flourish of sophisticated gadgetry. This is not
the case, however, with the three non-photographic works
on view.
The centerpiece of these interactive pieces is Bilal's version
of A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, after a work of the same
name by French artist, Edouard Manet (1832-1883). Manet
is one of those nineteenth-century artists upon whose
shoulders the history of modern art has been built, and
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) is his last major work,
and one of the great masterpieces of his career. The
setting is a Parisian nightclub, a place to see and be seen.
Art historians have written various interpretations of this
fascinating picture, addressing such aspects as the
relationship of the viewer to the barmaid and the offset
reflections (or other figures) in the mirror, and the painting
as a visual commentary on gendered public roles in late
nineteenth-century Paris.
Bilal’s 21st century interpretation is geared to satisfy the
contemporary viewer. Few have the patience to give ample
time to a work of art, though static, to unfold before one's
eyes. Bilal satiates our demands for immediate
gratification and moving pictures as the barmaid comes to
life and responds to the viewer before her. Sometimes
cheeky, sometimes sad, she is no longer the silent and
mysterious sphinx of the Folies-Bergère. But, there is
something even more fascinating than the barmaid Suzan
to watch; it is ourselves, as we are suddenly reflected in the
famous mirror. Suzan, once the object of our rapt attention,
must now compete with the viewer’s own image. The
narcissistic impulses of current society are given free reign,
and despite the Disneyland premise of this high-tech
“painting,” the mechanisms of kitsch become the conduits
of meaning.
Two smaller interactive pieces round out the exhibition, and
once again Bilal borrows from history. His reconfiguration
of Edgar Degas’s L'absinthe (1876), owing to the restraint
of his interpretation, works beautifully well. It is an image of
a couple at a café table, the man lost in thought, the woman
seemingly lost in a narcotic stupor after a good dose of
absinthe. The original character of the composition is
retained while a postscript is added through Bilal’s
manipulation.
Also on view is Bilal’s version of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona
Lisa (c.1503-04), a painting renowned for its inscrutable
nature. But via this computerized “enlivening,” all elements
of mystery are purposefully lost. Mona Lisa becomes a
common, ordinary, and crass figure, a shallow parody of
herself. This is the only work in the exhibition that falls flat,
and its unsophisticated manner seems out of sync with the
rest of the provocative and engaging works on view.
- K. M. Murrell
Katherine Murrell is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email kmmurrell@susceptibletoimages.com
Photographs by Wafaa Bilal
Dean Jensen Gallery
759 N. Water Street
Through December 2, 2006
Technology and human emotion seem like strange
bedfellows; one is precise, scientific, calculated, and the
other unpredictable, vulnerable, and changeable. But these
elements come together in the work of Wafaa Bilal on view
at Dean Jensen Gallery.
Bilal is a native of Iraq, and as a young man had aspirations
to study painting. This plan was thwarted by official
sanction and instead he spent his time at university
studying geography. He began speaking out against the
regime of Saddam Hussein, and became a condemned
man. Escaping to a refugee camp, it was two years until he
was granted political asylum in the United States. He went
on to study photography at the University of New Mexico and
earned a graduate degree at the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago, where he is now a faculty member.
Part of the exhibition at the Dean Jensen Gallery is devoted
to selections from Bilal’s series called “The Human
Condition.” Created between 2000 and 2005, these large
scale photographs are mesmerizing in their emotive
qualities. Most of the photographs show figures in a barren
wasteland, only dry, cracked red earth in a desolate, empty
landscape. In this lonely place are figures; one photograph
shows an old man mired in the dry dirt up to his knees. In
another, Bilal himself, naked and bent under the weight of a
mosque strapped to his back. These images are
allegorical and autobiographical, and have the feeling of
surrealistic dreams or nightmares of hopelessness.
These are profound and moving, and unquestionably
realistic. And so how were they produced? The creative
process was labor intensive, as sets and scenarios were
developed in the studio. But, there is a good dose of
photographic manipulation as multiple images are
seamlessly integrated to produce these significant and
lasting impressions. The technological aspect in these
photographs adds to their power and humanity rather than
detracting in a flourish of sophisticated gadgetry. This is not
the case, however, with the three non-photographic works
on view.
The centerpiece of these interactive pieces is Bilal's version
of A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, after a work of the same
name by French artist, Edouard Manet (1832-1883). Manet
is one of those nineteenth-century artists upon whose
shoulders the history of modern art has been built, and
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) is his last major work,
and one of the great masterpieces of his career. The
setting is a Parisian nightclub, a place to see and be seen.
Art historians have written various interpretations of this
fascinating picture, addressing such aspects as the
relationship of the viewer to the barmaid and the offset
reflections (or other figures) in the mirror, and the painting
as a visual commentary on gendered public roles in late
nineteenth-century Paris.
Bilal’s 21st century interpretation is geared to satisfy the
contemporary viewer. Few have the patience to give ample
time to a work of art, though static, to unfold before one's
eyes. Bilal satiates our demands for immediate
gratification and moving pictures as the barmaid comes to
life and responds to the viewer before her. Sometimes
cheeky, sometimes sad, she is no longer the silent and
mysterious sphinx of the Folies-Bergère. But, there is
something even more fascinating than the barmaid Suzan
to watch; it is ourselves, as we are suddenly reflected in the
famous mirror. Suzan, once the object of our rapt attention,
must now compete with the viewer’s own image. The
narcissistic impulses of current society are given free reign,
and despite the Disneyland premise of this high-tech
“painting,” the mechanisms of kitsch become the conduits
of meaning.
Two smaller interactive pieces round out the exhibition, and
once again Bilal borrows from history. His reconfiguration
of Edgar Degas’s L'absinthe (1876), owing to the restraint
of his interpretation, works beautifully well. It is an image of
a couple at a café table, the man lost in thought, the woman
seemingly lost in a narcotic stupor after a good dose of
absinthe. The original character of the composition is
retained while a postscript is added through Bilal’s
manipulation.
Also on view is Bilal’s version of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona
Lisa (c.1503-04), a painting renowned for its inscrutable
nature. But via this computerized “enlivening,” all elements
of mystery are purposefully lost. Mona Lisa becomes a
common, ordinary, and crass figure, a shallow parody of
herself. This is the only work in the exhibition that falls flat,
and its unsophisticated manner seems out of sync with the
rest of the provocative and engaging works on view.
- K. M. Murrell
Katherine Murrell is co-publisher of Susceptible to Images.
Comments? Email kmmurrell@susceptibletoimages.com
| Installation view. |
| Installation view. |
| Wafaa Bilal, Absinthe Drinker (after Edgar Degas) |
| Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882. Oil on canvas, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London. |