Critical Writing Index

Out of Beirut: Living Contradiction

by T. J. Demos

Artforum, Oct. 2006, v. 45, no. 2, pp. 235-238

T.J. Demos surveys methods of recording traumatic memory, history and archival process employed by artists in the midst of conflict. Documentary video, labels for absent landscape paintings, deteriorated photographs, and bunker-like nightclub designs are utilized to demonstrate difficulties representing history in a direct manner. Adressing questions of truth in representation, especially during violent conflict, Demos suggests that the "deepest encounters with reality necessarily entail a flight into imagination, personal and cultural alike".

ITEM 2006.074 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Here and Perhapse ElsewhereLamia Joreige

Love is BlindWalid Sadek

Wonder Beirut: The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer 1998-2006Joana Hadjithomas

Wonder Beirut: The Story of a Pyromaniac Photographer 1998-2006Khalil Joreige

Summer '88Paola Yacoub

Summer '88Michel Lasserre

Saida, June 6 1982Akram Zaatari

We Can Make Rain But No One Came To AskWalid Raad

Distracted Bullets, Symptomatic Video Number IJoana Hadjithomas

Distracted Bullets, Symptomatic Video Number IKhalil Joreige

B018Bernard Khoury

Walid Ra'ad