Microreview: The Paralyzing Present of Collapse

Lamia Review 1
Enamel paint, enamel spray paint, balsa wood, fir wood, nails; 20 x 20 x 3 cm (2020–2022). Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Lamia Review 2
Oil, enamel spray paint, gauze plywood, fir wood, nails; 20 x 20 x 3 cm (2020–2022). Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Lamia Review 3
Enamel paint, corrugated cardboard, balsa wood, fir wood, nails; 20 x 20 x 3 cm (2020–2022). Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Lamia Review 4
Oil, acrylic, acrylic spray paint, aluminum sheet; 20 x 25 x 3 cm (2020–2022). Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Lamia Review 5
Acrylic, acrylic spray paint, aluminum sheet; 20 x 25 x 3 cm (2020–2022). Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Lamia Review 6
Acrylic, gouache, corrugated cardboard, paper, fir wood, nails; 20 x 20 x 3 cm (2020–2022). Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Lamia Review 7
Acrylic, acrylic spray paint, aluminum sheet, fir wood, nails; 20 x 20 x 3 cm (2020–2022). Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Lamia Review 8
Gallery view of Paintings (2020–2022), Saleh Barakat Gallery, Beirut. Photo: Lamia Abukhadra
Date
2023 May
Subtitle
Lamia Abukhadra reviews Walid Sadek, Paintings 2020 – 2022, Beirut, September 2022.
Type
microreview
Author / Publisher
Lamia Abukhadra for NewsLibrary
Author Info

Lamia Abukhadra is an artist whose practice studies how disasters can resurrect and generate new forms of perception, collectivity, and resistance, using the Palestinian and Lebanese contexts as microcosms of urgency. She currently resides in Beirut.

www.lamiaabukhadra.com

@lamiaabukhadra

Language

English

Also published here

Newsletter No. 54

Instagram @sarn_switzerland

Reviewed Publication

Walid Sadek, Paintings 2020 – 2022, Beirut, September 2022.

salehbarakatgallery.com


Resources

- The Ruin to Come: Essays from a protracted war by Walid Sadek (2016)

- A surfeit of victims: a time after time by Walid Sadek (2019)

- Future Perfect: Thinking, Making, Writing: Contemporary Art in Catastrophe with Walid Sadek

- Catalogue for Walid Sadek: Paintings 2020 – 2022 presented at Saleh Barakat Gallery in September 2022. The catalogue includes a short essay by Nayla Tamraz who uses the phrase “pictorial turn,” referenced above.

Art Evolution Impulse Series: A series of talks curated by Alia Hamdan where speakers were invited to reflect on the state of the acting body as Lebanon continues to decay:

- Impulse I - On the politics and possibilities of reincarnation, by Lawrence Abu Hamdan

- Impulse II part 1 - The sectarian-image: action, by Fares Chalabi

- Impulse II part 2 - The sectarian-image: action, by Fares Chalabi

- Impulse III - A Talk by Walid Sadek

In Lebanon, daily life is punctuated by infrastructural, economic, and political ruptures, generating a crisis of action. The practice of Walid Sadek, too, has undergone an abrupt shift. Known for his minimalist text-based works on the aesthetics of protracted Civil War in Lebanon, in September 2022 Sadek presented an exhibition of small-scale colourful paintings titled Paintings 2020 – 2022 in Beirut. Notably, there was no text.

According to thinker Fares Chalabi, the shift in Sadek’s practice reflects a wider shift in the real in Lebanon today. Lebanon’s stagnancy produces a situation that is impossible to act within and therefore can only be looked at. For Sadek, the problems experienced in post-war Lebanon are overtaken by the quotidian of decay. He explores the optical materiality of collapse through the layering of colours and readily available materials. Sadek’s ‘pictorial turn’ exemplifies how the present crisis of action is shaping artistic practices and discourse in Lebanon.