Akram Zaatari
Dance to the End of Love, 2011
4 channel SD video, colour, sound
22 minutes
copyright the artist
Further images
Dance to the End of Love, 2011 Dance to the End of Love (2011) considers the role of social media in creating shared histories and a communal digital space where...
Dance to the End of Love, 2011
Dance to the End of Love (2011) considers the role of social media in creating shared histories and a communal digital space where the private and public intersect. The staccato four-channel video installation is a marked departure for Zaatari’s, whose earlier films take a more narrative form.
The work is composed of found footage of youths on the eve of the Arab Spring, primarily gleaned from online platforms such as YouTube. The low-resolution self-documentary material was mostly captured on mobile phones in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Saudi-Arabia and Oman. Grouped according to repeated actions the recordings shows men driving cars, riding motorcycles, bodybuilding, singing and dancing, disparate in space and time. The work serves to continues Zaatari’s ongoing investigation of masculinity and the male form. Digital photographs multiplied in tiles across the screen show seemingly private mementoes of homosexual encounters – acts of defiance in regions characterized by homophobia.
The work presents a sharp contrast to the images of extreme violence in the region that have populated social media in recent years. The films, often intimate, romantic, naïve, and occasionally banal, are a viral means of communication, and express a desire to converse and engage with a broader global dialogue. Extending beyond temporal and geographical borders, Dance to the End of Love probes the nature of human relationships and asserts the permeability of memory.
Viewing copies of Dance to the End of Love:
https://vimeo.com/281962999
https://vimeo.com/281963486
https://vimeo.com/281963662
https://vimeo.com/281963866
Password: Zaatari-Dancetotheend
Installation at New Art Exchange in Nottingham:
https://vimeo.com/280104194
Password: nae_notts
Dance to the End of Love (2011) considers the role of social media in creating shared histories and a communal digital space where the private and public intersect. The staccato four-channel video installation is a marked departure for Zaatari’s, whose earlier films take a more narrative form.
The work is composed of found footage of youths on the eve of the Arab Spring, primarily gleaned from online platforms such as YouTube. The low-resolution self-documentary material was mostly captured on mobile phones in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Saudi-Arabia and Oman. Grouped according to repeated actions the recordings shows men driving cars, riding motorcycles, bodybuilding, singing and dancing, disparate in space and time. The work serves to continues Zaatari’s ongoing investigation of masculinity and the male form. Digital photographs multiplied in tiles across the screen show seemingly private mementoes of homosexual encounters – acts of defiance in regions characterized by homophobia.
The work presents a sharp contrast to the images of extreme violence in the region that have populated social media in recent years. The films, often intimate, romantic, naïve, and occasionally banal, are a viral means of communication, and express a desire to converse and engage with a broader global dialogue. Extending beyond temporal and geographical borders, Dance to the End of Love probes the nature of human relationships and asserts the permeability of memory.
Viewing copies of Dance to the End of Love:
https://vimeo.com/281962999
https://vimeo.com/281963486
https://vimeo.com/281963662
https://vimeo.com/281963866
Password: Zaatari-Dancetotheend
Installation at New Art Exchange in Nottingham:
https://vimeo.com/280104194
Password: nae_notts
Provenance
The Artist
Exhibitions
The Script, New Art Exchange, Nottingham, England, 13 July - 9 September 2018; travelled to Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, England, 23 Mar – 12 May 2019Tomorrow Everything Will Be Alright, Galpão VB, Videobrasil Cultural Association, Sao Paolo, Brazil, 13 September - 3 December 2016
38th Cinema du Réel Festival, Paris, France, 18-27 March 2016
Akram Zaatari, Salt Beyoglu, Istanbul, Turkey, 2 December 2014 - 15 February 2015
Archive State, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago IL, 21 January - 6 April 2014
Project 100: Akram Zaatari, Museum of Modern Art, New York NY, 11 May – 29 September 2013
Akram Zaatari, Liverpool Biennial at FACT, Liverpool, England, 15 September - 25 November 2012
The Uneasy Subject, MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico, 28 January - 10 June 2012
Composition for Two Wings, Kunsternes Hus, Oslo, Norway, 4 November 2011 - 22 January 2012
The Uneasy Subject, Museo del Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain, 29 January - 5 June 2011
Literature
Tomorrow everything will be alright. Sao Paolo: Associaçào Cultural Videobrasil, 2016, pp. 18-19 ill.38th Cinema du Réel Festival, Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2016 p. 112 (exhibition guide)