Fouad Elkoury
The Lost Empire
Project Space:
Lamya Gargash
Traces
April 30–May 29, 2014
The Third Line
Al Quoz 3
Dubai, UAE
T +9714 3411 367
www.thethirdline.com
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The Third Line is pleased to present The Lost Empire, Fouad Elkoury’s third solo show in Dubai, which presents the artist’s photographic journey through abandoned Soviet military bases.
In a practice spanning more than four decades, Fouad’s work has come to be associated with documentary photography through lands that have experienced strife—with the landscape and architecture pockmarked with human conflict. The current body of work explores a similar topography of war.
After having decided to document abandoned Soviet military bases in 2009, Fouad visited dozens of military bases in Poland, Hungary, Estonia and East Germany between 2010 and 2011. Most were aviation fields; others served separate purposes. Despite having being told there was nothing to photograph there, Fouad found the abandoned desolation far more captivating.
About Fouad Elkoury
Fouad Elkoury has been at the forefront of photographic practices in Lebanon and the wider Middle East for quite some time. In 1982, he covered the Israeli invasion of Beirut and in 1984 published Beyrouth Aller-Retour, a book documenting the bomb-shocked city—a prelude to his sophomore project, Beirut City Centre, in 1991—and ignited a distinguished bibliography, which continues to this day.
Fouad created the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation in 1997, and in 2001 introduced video into his repertoire with the film Lettres à Francine to accompany the chiaroscuro-esque photographic series Sombre, with Moving Out (2003) and Welcome to Beirut (2005) to follow. His On Love and War, a series of journal entries spanning the duration of Israel’s onslaught onto Lebanon in August 2006, was shown in Lebanon’s first National Pavilion in the Venice Biennale of 2007.
Fouad has held solo exhibitions at major institutions including Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Paris; Beirut Art Center, Beirut; Townhouse Gallery, Cairo; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. His work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Centre Pompidou, Paris; and 9th Gwangju, 52nd Venice and 7th Sharjah Biennials. Fouad’s works are part of permanent collections at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris and Solidere in Beirut.
Project Space
Lamya Gargash: Traces
Lamya Gargash returns to The Third Line, showing her new body of work in the gallery Project Space. Lamya’s recent photographs expand upon her interventions in living spaces, seeking human presence in otherwise empty compositions. The exhibition consists of a selection of photographs taken at various points in time, celebrating the visibly banal. As a photographer, Lamya finds that these poetic instances suggest moments of physical interaction of some sort and communicate our human-ness.
About Lamya Gargash
Lamya Gargash graduated with an MA in Communication Design from Saint Martins in the UK (2007). In 2004, she received first prize in the Emirates Film Festival, as well as the Ibdaa Special Jury Award for her movie titled Wet Tiles. Her first artist book, Presence, is a photographic series which documents recently vacated houses and structures in the United Arab Emirates that have been abandoned or left for demolition. Lamya has held solo exhibitions in Italy and UAE and has participated in various group exhibitions in Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan and France as well as within the UAE. In 2009, she participated in the 53rd Venice Biennale as the featured artist of the UAE’s first-ever national pavilion, and in the 9th Sharjah Biennale. In 2014, she participated in the 15th International FotoFest Biennial in Houston, USA.
About The Third Line
The Third Line is a Dubai-based art gallery that represents contemporary Middle Eastern artists and also hosts non-profit, alternative programs to increase interest and dialogue in the region. In addition to this, The Third Line publishes books by associated artists from the region.
Represented artists include Abbas Akhavan, Ala Ebtekar, Amir H. Fallah, Arwa Abouon, Babak Golkar, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Farhad Moshiri, Fouad Elkoury, Golnaz Fathi, Hassan Hajjaj, Hayv Kahraman, Huda Lutfi, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Laleh Khorramian, Lamya Gargash, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Pouran Jinchi, Rana Begum, Sahand Hesamiyan, Sara Naim, Sherin Guirguis, Shirin Aliabadi, Slavs and Tatars, Sophia Al-Maria, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Youssef Nabil and Zineb Sedira.
Media Contact
Saira Ansari, PR & Media Manager: saira [at] thethirdline.com / T +9714 3411 367
