Somniculus - Ali Cherri
Ali Cherri is a video and visual artist who prompts us to look at cultural heritage, ruins and museum artefacts in new ways. In the exhibition Somniculus, Cherri brings together objects from ethnographic, archaeological and natural science museums, to discuss our collective historiography and how we can approach these enigmatic things.
The video work Somniculus is a nocturnal reckoning shot in a series of palatial museum galleries in Paris. The artefacts and knowledge accrued and managed by museums are intimately linked to hierarchies, colonial looting and nationalist projects. In Somniculus, Ali Cherri articulates a new approach to these enigmatic objects.
Exhibition period
March 25, 2021 – May 30, 2021
Ali Cherri is a video artist and a sculptor. He grew up in Beirut during the Civil War, studied design and later performing arts in Amsterdam. The ancient heritage and the ruin as aesthetics, are questions that interests Cherri. It could be about, how culture historical objects in the Middle East become tiles in a geopolitical game, from smuggling of antiques to new regional museum sites but also about, what growing up in ruins does to people.
See the panel talk: Light sleep as a decolonial activity
-Ali Cherri’s Somniculus and new modes of encountering museum objects.
In addition to the video Somniculus, Grafting is also shown. A sculptural example of, how Ali Cherri often composes artifacts and natural objects in sculptures. When culture historical and regional background facts are reduced, new stories emerge. The object points back to the structure of the museum and the viewer.
Åsa Bharahti-Larson, senior lecturer in Art History, talks about Ali Cherri and postcolonial images.
Somniculus (2017) is co-produced with Jeu de Paume, Paris, Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques et CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux. With the support of Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Louvren, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Musée de l’Homme, Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.
Family Saturday with the artist Gijs Weijer, from the exhibition.
About the artist
Ali Cherri, born 1976, is a video- and visual artist, resident in Beirut and Paris. Read more: (link to webpage)
Selected separate exhibitions:
The Breathless Forest, La Vitrine, Beirut, Lebanon (2019)
Somniculus, Jeu de Paume, Paris, France (2017)
Dénaturé, Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, France (2017)
Somniculus, CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France (2017)
From Fragment to Whole, Jönköping’s county museum (2017)
A Taxonomy of Fallacies, Musée Sursock, Beirut, Lebanon (2016)
Bird’s Eye View, CAP Kuwait Art Center, Kuwait (2014)
Selected group exhibitions:
Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, 13th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2020)
Manifesta 13, Marseille, France (2020)
GAÏA Que deviens-tu ? Maison Guerlain, Paris, France (2019)
Phantom Limb, Jameel Arts Center Dubai (2019)
Immortality, Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art Russia (2019)
An Opera For Animals, Parasite Hong Kong och Rockbund Art Museum Shanghai, China (2019)
Liquid Horizons, Tranzit.sk, Bratislava, Slovakia (2019)
Le Musée Imaginaire, Jaou Tunis, Tunisia (2018)
Scholarships and prizes:
Rockefeller Foundation Award (2017)
Harvard University’s Robert E. Fulton Fellowship (2016)
Nominerad till The Abraaj Group Art Prize (2017)
New Vision Award CPH:DOX (2015)
Represented:
Art Jameel, Dubai, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, MACBA, Barcelona, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Sursock Museum Beirut.