Born 1980 in Beirut, Lebanon Lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon
In an artistic practice shaped by the ultimate event horizon of the Lebanese Civil War, Alfred Tarazi deploys his visual strategies in order to dig out fields of memory, emplaced haphazardly in a vast expanse of the present tense, often without direction or destination. A narrative emphasis occurs, at the root of which, the artist is unearthing critical and historical tools to read past events, provided by the past itself in the manner of a reluctant heritage. Tackling the Lebanese obsession with history, Tarazi playfully interrogates its questionable sources and selective archival practices, highlighting the role of the past as both origin and destination. With merciless realism intersecting both fiction and historiography, the artist articulates the spectacle of war as a syntax of the unimaginable, broken down piecemeal to a lived present. This archaeology of the now- time does not aim to restore, but rather, to represent a historical condition through fragments of anomalies and singularities. The field of representation, however, prevents distance and enclosure: it is a laboratory, a journal, a political inquiry, a memory site and a reality marker.
Alfred Tarazi is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Beirut. In 2004, he graduated with a degree in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut. His entire body of work, ranging across painting, photography, drawing, digital collage, sculpture and installation, revolves around complex historical investigations. His work has been acquired by prestigious public and private collections, including the British Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.
