Floating free
Makhoul, Bashir (2015) Floating free. [Exhibition/show, Installation, Painting, Sculpture, Site-specific work]
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Floating Free, is the first solo exhibition for Palestinian British-based artist Bashir Makhoul in Palestine. The exhibition was shown at two venues and had two consecutive openings; on 8 October 2015 at Al Hoash Gallery– Jerusalem followed on 10 October 2015 at Birzeit University Museum. The exhibition was initiated by Palestinian Art Court – Al Hoash working in partnership with Birzeit University Museum and curated by Rawan Sharaf.
This exhibition comes over twenty years after Makhoul—originally from the Galilee—became a UK resident, and hence marks a return of some sort. This exhibition explores aspects of what does it mean for an artist and a by-choice émigré to enact a form of return. This critical enquiry emerges through the production of a body of work that makes close reference to his sense of identity, belonging and loyalty. This is largely happening against a backdrop of which return, remains a concept troubled with paradoxical connotations and consumed by the gravity of history, dislocation and the continuation of colonization. Concurrently, the title, Floating Free, suggests unavoidable contradictions to that of return, which as a concept assumes certitude in relation to where the return is taking place. Floating, on the contrary, is more about uncertainty, flux, hovering in midair in the middle of nowhere. Essentially it represents unsettlement; a perceptible reiteration of the continuous displacement across borders and nations.
Floating Free presents a series of art projects, through which the artist explores new ways of visualizing locations and articulating identities. The exhibition features a new series of oil paintings, tapestries, lithography prints, wooden sculptures, site-specific installations and wallpaper. The exhibition also interrogates concepts of ownership, belonging and colonial practices through a major public space performance that will take place through a march in the streets of Jerusalem and will end with an on-site installation at Karm al Khalili.
All the works displayed are visually linked by imagery of unfolding repeated motifs as if they all interlaced with a thread that has brilliantly woven a journey where art and politics meet. Floating Free investigates issues of territorial and cultural appropriation and interrogates the limits of the condition of location, identity, humanity and ethics. It debates the nature of art and its role within a globalized, market-dominated world. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the British Council and is funded by the European Union and A.M.Qattan Foundation.
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