ARTSPACE LONDON is thrilled to
announce the first ever UK solo exhibition for the famed Iraqi artist, Halim Al
Karim. Al Karim’s work is a far cry from his
humbled beginnings where he endured a harrowing experience during the first
Gulf War. Opposing Saddam Hussein’s regime and its compulsory military service,
Al Karim took to hiding in the desert, where he lived for almost 3 years in a
hole in the ground - these events have had a profound effect on his life and
form the basis for his art practice.
Witness From Baghdad will showcase a collection
of his work from 1985 – 2011. Halim Al Karim has created a style and oeuvre of art that
does not give a descriptive narrative; but rather, a concealed vision of
realities that are not acknowledged within his society. Concerned with the on-going and
unresolved issues in urban society, Halim Al Karim’s striking works dwell on
the evolving mentality behind these matters, especially those related to
violence. With his work perpetually bridging the gap between photographic reality
and optical illusion, Halim Al Karim’s creations strongly reflect the
psychological desire to escape as well as the ramifications of his dreams and
his personal experience of love and war.
For Halim al
Karim, photography is the perfect medium in which to express himself, he says;
“it retains anchors of our visual reality and can be manipulated to show
altered states of mind. Compositionally out of focus, sometimes rendered more
mysterious under a veil of silk, my photographs imply an uncertainty of context,
time and place, embodying the past, present and future simultaneously.”
ARTSPACE LONDON
is honoured to exhibit Witness From
Baghdad in 2013 - the ten-year anniversary of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
that resulted in the Ba’athist Iraqi government being deposed.
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