| Dates: | born 1963
| | Biography: | 1963 Born in Palestine.
Lives and works in Stockport, England
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999-2000 Hold, Israeli Museum,
Herzelia, Tel Aviv
1993-94 Touring Exhibition, Huddersfield
Art Gallery; Bluecoat Arts Centre,
Liverpool; Aspex Art Gallery,
Portsmouth; Oldham Art Gallery;
Middlesborough Art Gallery
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1996-97
Ace, Arts Council Collection
New Purchases Touring Exhibition The
Hayward Gallery, London; Whatnot
Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne; Harris;
Museum, Preston; Oldham Art Gallery;
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Mappin
Gallery, Sheffield; Angel Row,
Nottingham; Ormeau Baths, Belfast;
Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
1995-96
South Bank Touring Exhibition,
Collection of the Arts Council of Great
Britain, Norwich School of Art and
Design; University Gallery, University of
Northumbria, Newcastle; New Lyn Oriel
Gallery, Penzance; The Drumcroon
Gallery, Wigan; Aberdeen Museum and
Art Gallery, Aberdeen; Victoria Gallery,
Bath; McClavrin Gallery, Ayr
FURTHER READING
Cubitt, S. "Arabesques: Bashir Makhoul
and the Unfinished Project of
Modernism," Third Text (Winter 1994):
43-50
Dovey, J. "Bashir Makhoul and Richard
Hylton," Third Text (Autumn 1996): 96-8
Duncan, A. Bashir Makhoul (exh. cat.),
Hayward Gallery/East London Gallery,
London 1997
Hon, G. and J. Hyatt. "Alherjara," Art
Monthly 168 (July-Aug. 1993): 26-7
Whitbread, A. Bashir Makhoul: The
Hayward Artists in Residence Scheme
(exh. cat.), Hayward Education, London
1997 | | | Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | | Date of source: | 1999 |
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| | Description: | Bashir Makhoul is an English artist
originally from Palestine. His video and
sound installation, The Darkened Room,
is based on the relationship he
developed with his grandmother shortly
before her death. Because Makhoul had
grown up in England while she remained
in Lebanon, he only came to know her
as an adult. After their first meeting she
sent him recorded letters.
The soundtrack is taken from these
intimate conversations. The small room
in which the piece is housed has a false
floor, underneath which the artist has
installed a sound system. This gives the
sound a physical quality, in that it can
be felt through the feet as well as heard.
Enveloped in the conversation, the
visitor's bodily responses are magnified.
These aural and tactile effects are
complemented by two video images of a
single eye, each gazing at the other
across the room. They document the
artist's physical response to his
grandmother's recorded voice. Although
he tries not to cry, we watch as his
eyelids flutter and pools of moisture form
around the rim of the eye, then disperse.
Photographs of Makhoul's grandmother -
in her youth and as an old woman - are
installed opposite the doorway. These
two images, of distant moments in one
life, make us aware of all the moents
that have passed unrec orded. A black
ribbonsignifies her death and Makhoul's
bereavement.
| | Description Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 1999 | | Gender: | male | | Type: | person |
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