Alia Farid @ Chisenhale Gallery, London - "Elsewhere" Exhibition

Alia Farid: Elsewhere

Chisenhale Gallery, London

Through 4 February 2024

ALIA FARID 

Research image (2023)  

Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, 

and commissioned  by Chisenhale Gallery, London; 

Passerelle Centre d'art contemporain, Brest; 

The Power Plant, Toronto; and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna. 

Courtesy of the artist.

ALIA FARID 

El Amal (2023) and El Nilo (menú) (2023), left to right

Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, 

and commissioned  by Chisenhale Gallery, London; 

Passerelle Centre d'art contemporain, Brest; 

and The Power Plant, Toronto.

Photo: Andy Keate

ALIA FARID 

Mezquita de Río Piedras (2023), Chucherías (2023),

Tierra Santa (2023), and Mezquita de Hatillo (2023), left to right

Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, 

and commissioned  by Chisenhale Gallery, London; 

Passerelle Centre d'art contemporain, Brest; 

and The Power Plant, Toronto.

Photo: Andy Keate

ALIA FARID 

Elsewhere (2023) 

Installation view, Chisenhale Gallery, London, 2023 

Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, 

and commissioned  by Chisenhale Gallery, London; 

Passerelle Centre d'art contemporain, Brest; 

and The Power Plant, Toronto.

Photo: Andy Keate

Elsewhere is a major commission and the first solo exhibition in the UK by ALIA FARID. Working in film, sculpture, and textile, Alia Farid traces histories often marginalised or obscured by the Global North. In her artworks, communities, local practices, and traditions are reconsidered, giving the rhythms of everyday life political significance and potency.

Sixteen hand-woven and embroidered rugs span the length of the gallery. Drawing from photographs, archival material, and interviews with local people, the works detail cityscapes – buildings, shop fronts, and adverts – that conjure the presence of the Palestinian diaspora in Puerto Rico. Pharmacies and restaurants, owned and operated by Palestinians, are woven alongside brightly coloured mosques and a menu detailing ‘Arabic cuisine’.

The result of a close collaboration with weavers in Samawa, in southern Iraq, the textiles have been crafted through a combination of flat weaving and chain stitching specific to the region. Architecture, script (Arabic and Spanish), and traditional woven motifs recur throughout, illuminating how migration from one region in the Global South to another, brings forth new meanings, forms, and expressions of shared struggle and solidarity. Hanging in two parallel rows, the installation creates panoramic views, and a layering of lived history and daily routine.

Elsewhere is a growing material archive that traces the ways styles, symbols, rituals, and other social devices coalesce across continents. It is the first chapter of an ongoing research project, initially conceived in 2013, which maps Arab and South Asian migration to Latin America and the Caribbean. Other sites of investigation include Trinidad, Cuba, and Mexico. In this accumulative and iterative process, Elsewhere marks one crossroads on an intricate map.

Elsewhere is produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London, and co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London; Passerelle Centre d'art contemporain, Brest; The Power Plant, Toronto; and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna. It will be exhibited at CAC Passerelle, Brest from 23 February to 18 May 2024 and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna thereafter

ALIA FARID lives and works in Kuwait and Puerto Rico. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from la Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico (San Juan), a Master of Science in Visual Studies from the Visual Arts Program at MIT (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies and Critical Theory from the Programa d’Estudis Independents, MACBA (Barcelona). Selected exhibitions include: In Lieu of What Is, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (2022); Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2022); Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora 1990s - Today, MCA Chicago, Chicago (2022); Alia Farid: At the Time of the Ebb, Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art (WAM), Turku, Finland (2021); 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane (2021); Alia Farid, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2020); Yokohama Triennale 2020, Afterglow, Yokohama, Japan (2020) In Lieu of What Was, Portikus, Frankfurt/Main (2019); Between Dig and Display, Galerie Imane Farès, Paris (2017). Farid is nominated for the Artes Mundi 10 and the Nam June Paik Award 2023, and is the recipient of The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award 2023.

CHISENHALE GALLERY 

64 Chisenhale Road, London, E3 5QZ 

www.chisenhale.org.uk

Toby Zielger, Chisenhale Gallery, London - Enter Desire

Toby Zielger: Enter Desire

Chisenhale Gallery, London

27 January - 13 March 2005

Toby Ziegler’s first solo exhibition in a public gallery comprises a hybrid mix of painting, sculpture and installation. Toby Ziegler concentrates on the traditional genres of landscape, interiors and still life to produce optically resonant works, often painted on workman’s industrial light-reflective fabric or Japanese paper.

Toby Ziegler makes use of interlocking geometric patterns and designs adapted from a wide variety of sources, juxtaposing hard-edged qualities against a painterly touch. His reflective and luminous works appear visually unstable, shifting radically what they reveal to viewers, depending on the angle from which the work is seen and the changing light conditions. His works encourage the viewer to actively decipher the complex spaces he both depicts and constructs.

Toby Ziegler’s exhibition includes three large-scale landscape paintings; a reconfigured Persian rug, created by cutting undulating patterns into two rugs and interlocking them to form a new whole; a rotating geometric latticework lantern, ten feet in height, each panel hand-painted in Japanese ink on paper, depicting a generic pastoral scene with five separate vanishing points; and a glowing Sphinx, ten feet in length and eight in height, constructed entirely from folded acetate and illuminated from within by a pulsing light. Wrapped around the Sphinx’s surface will be a landscape, printed in shades of grey and pink.

Toby Ziegler was born in 1972 and studied at Central St. Martin’s between 1991 and 1994. He lives and works in London. He was recently awarded a Delfina Studios residency. Recent exhibitions include: Expander, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2004; John Moores 23, The Walker, Liverpool, 2004; Collection 1 (curated by Stephen Hepworth), Isabella Brancolini Arte Contemporanea, Florence, 2004; Art Kliasma 2003, Moscow; EAST International, Norwich Gallery, 2003; Civilia, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, 2003; Creek, Cell project space, London, 2003; Project with Christopher Landoni and Oliver Michaels; King of Norway’s house, Piccadilly, London, 2002; Project with Christopher Landoni, Hoxton House, London, 2002.

CHISENHALE GALLERY

64 Chisenhale Road, London E3 5QZ

www.chisenhale.org.uk

Gary Webb - Chisenhale Gallery, London - Deep Heat T-Reg Laguna

Gary Webb: Deep Heat T-Reg Laguna
Chisenhale Gallery, London
14 October – 12 December 2004

Gary Webb’s first solo exhibition in a public gallery is a pivotal, in-depth exploration of the artist’s new work.  Using a wide range of materials including glass, rubber, marble, metal, plastic and sound, Gary Webb employs an intuitive visual flourish that retains a seductive sense of mystery.

Crucial to Gary Webb’s work is his personal relationship to the materials he finds around him. Gary Webb is fascinated by the contemporary urban environment - a world of highly designed interiors comprising restaurants, bars, leisure centres and shopping malls.

Gary Webb’s sculpture hovers equivocally between abstraction and a subtle form of figuration so that organic forms coexist, with varying degrees of ease, alongside mass-produced elements. The familiarity and vivid sensuality of his materials draw in the viewer, whilst their combination and structural qualities solve what Webb calls ‘problems that I invent for myself’.

As well as the evident pleasure taken in his chosen materials, Gary Webb’s sculptures invariably end up being more than the sum of their parts. As the viewer moves around them they are able to evoke a wide array of emotions and unexpected narratives, deftly sidestepping hastily reductive interpretations while proposing their own internal logic.

Gary Webb builds playfully on a broad spectrum of art historical precedents: Brancusi, Moore, Hepworth, Judd, King, Artschwager and Kounellis have all been cited by various critics when discussing Gary Webb’s work, but his sculptures are also very much of their time. They edgily define a highly individual relationship to a world of bewildering consumer choices, hybrid technologies and the desire for material culture.

Gary Webb was born in 1973 and graduated from Goldsmiths’ College in 1997. Recent exhibitions include: The Moderns, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino (2003); Biennale d’Art Contemporian de Lyon (2003); Early One Morning, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2002); Ringer, MW Projects, London (2002, solo); Casino 2001, SMAK, Ghent, Belgium (2001); Nouveau Riche (with Keith Farquhar), The Approach, London (2000); Gary Webb plays Gary Webb, The Approach, London (1998, solo).

CHISENHALE GALLERY
64 Chisenhale Road, London E3 5QZ
www.chisenhale.org.uk