Public presentation by artist Ziad Antar (b.1978, Beirut, Paris), 17 May, 2 – 5 PM, 2016

Public presentation by artist Ziad Antar (b.1978, Beirut, Paris), funded by University of Kent
followed by conversation with Mihaela Varzari (History and Philosophy of Art PhD researcher, University of Kent) and screening of feature film Johnny Got his Gun (1971), written and directed by Dalton Trumbo.

17 May, 2 – 5 PM, 2016
Studio 3 Gallery, School of Arts
Jarman Building, University of Kent
Canterbury CT2 7UG

After Imagines, 2016 by Ziad Antar, courtesy of the artist

  

Ziad Antar (b. 1978) has spent the last 10 years of his professional life as a contemporary artist between Lebanon and France. His recent solo shows include After Images. Stories from the mountains of Asir, Beirut Exhibition Center, Lebanon, 2016 and Derivable Sculptures supported by Selma Feriani Gallery and Amine Rech Gallery in collaboration with Shubbak & Westminster Council, London, UK, 2015.

Mihaela Varzari’s interest in Ziad Antar’s work relates his use of ‘secrecy’ or ‘concealment’ as a theme and as a formal device that he employs in much of his work.  Varzari's research into ‘Narcissism’ (a constituent theme of her PhD)  led her to understand Antar's work as something that paradoxically reveals itself through gestures of concealment, chiming with the ‘inside that is also an outside’ of the mobius strip, a figure that is often evoked to describe the structure of Narcissism in psychoanalysis. The discussion with Ziad will centre on questions relating to ‘secrecy’ and ‘concealment’ as a theme or strategy in his work, from his early short films, such as Tokyo Tonight, 2003, to his photographic or more recent public sculptural works.

The presentation will conclude with a narcissistic gesture on Varzari's part; the screening of the film Johnny Got His Gun, an anti war film about a Vietnam veteran suffering from shell-shock, that Varzari watched together with Ziad in Paris in 2008.

The event will continue with drinks at a TBA nearby venue.