Tarek al ghoussein biography channel
Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Photographer Who Captured Life in Diaspora, Dies at 60
Tarek Al-Ghoussein, a widely praised Kuwaiti-born photographer whose work dealt with displacement in the Middle East, died at 60 in New York on Saturday, according to the Third Line, the Dubai gallery that represents him. A representative for the gallery said a cause of death had not yet been confirmed.
Al-Ghoussein’s photography had garnered acclaim, both within the United Arab Emirates, where he was based, and abroad, where his work figured in international biennials. Much of his work drew on his experience of a life lived in flux, with various series meditating on the landscape of Abu Dhabi, his position as an artist of Palestinian descent, and the construction of the not-yet-complete Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
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He was at the top of his career when he died, having recently been nominated for the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Richard Mille Prize, a new art award. Al-Ghoussein had recently been named director of New York University’s M.F.A. program in Abu Dhabi.
“Odysseus,” Al-Ghoussein’s most well-known series, was begun in 2015, and involves the artist attempting to photograph all 215 of Abu Dhabi’s islands. Because of the ambitious scope and because visits to most islands involve going through bureaucratic red tape, Al-Ghoussein had only been successful in going to several dozen of them by the time a show of these works was mounted at the Third Line in 2021.
In many pictures, Al-Ghoussein situated himself as an unmoored figure within a vacant landscape—seated blankly at the top of a slide in one photograph, staring outward at an arid expanse in another. Some other photographs in the series simply envisioned open expanses of water and sandy desert-like areas.
“My goal is not to be in all of the photographs, because sometimes I feel like the image does not need me in there, and I want to avoid the superficial reading o Tarek Al-Ghoussein is an artist based in the UAE. His work has appeared in international exhibitions throughout Europe, the United States and the Middle East. His work is also featured in several anthologies and a monograph on his work In Absentia was published by Page One and The Third Line in 2009. Al-Ghoussein's work is in permanent collections at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Royal Museum of Photography in Copenhagen, Darat Al-Funun in Amman and Mathaf Museum in Qatar. In this interview for Ibraaz, the artist explores the development of his work and how, through the form and technique of the self-portrait, it engages with preconceptions of what is meant by 'Arabness' in the eyes of both Arabs and non-Arabs alike. Al-Ghoussein also addresses what he considers to be a failure of sorts in his early photojournalist work and how his later body of photographs attempts to unpack what is meant by belonging and identity in a region where such ideals are not only beset by glib media representations but are also underwritten by the popular stereotypes of Arabness that circulate throughout the Middle East and beyond. Anthony Downey: The very first work I saw of yours was War Room (2004), and I think I saw this in Sharjah in 2005. Could we talk a little about this, as it stands apart from your subsequent work, but I think certain elements in it come through in your more recent work. Tarek Al-Ghoussein: Yes, I had two projects at the 2005 Sharjah Biennial, and War Room was one of them. During the first Gulf War in 1991, I was in Egypt and travel was very difficult for me. I was following developments on television and began documenting the reporting with a Polaroid camera. After the images were first exhibited, someone wrote about the work and referred to me as a 'poor suffering Kuwaiti artist who was reacting He was born in Kuwait. Lives and works in Sharjah, UAE. EDUCATION 1989 Master of Arts, Photography, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 1985 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Photography, New York University, New York, USA. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 2004-Present Associate Professor of Photography, American University of Sharjah, School of Architecture and Design, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. 1998-June 2004 Assistant Professor of Photography, American University of Sharjah, School of Architecture and Design, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. 1994-1996 Photography Instructor, Blake Art College, London, UK. 1991 Photography Instructor, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt. EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED) 2011 ʽTarek Al-Ghoussein. E-Seriesʼ, Kalfayan Galleries, Athens. 2010 ʽTarek Al-Ghoussein. E-Seriesʼ: PhotoBiennale 2010 – 21st International Photography Meeting. Venue: Yeni Tzami. Organised by the Museum of Photography of Thessaloniki. Exhibition held in collaboration with Kalfayan Galleries. ʽTarek Al-Ghoussein. A Retrospective – Works from 2001 to 2010ʼ, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, UAE. 2009 ʽDisorientation IIʼ (curated by Jack Persekian), Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi. 53 Venice Biennale, UAE Pavillion, Venice. In Absentia, Galerie Brigitte Schenk, Cologne, Germany. Kalfayan Galleries, Athens, Greece. The Third Line Gallery, Dubai, UAE. 2008 Reorientations, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium. Never Part, Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium. First Brussels Biennale. Wonder, Singapore Biennale, Singapore. Roads were open/Roads were closed, The Third Line Gallery, Dubai, UAE. Blue Diptych, Jerusalem Show, Al Maamal Foundation, Jerusalem, Palestine. New Ends, Old Beginnings Blue Coat, Liverpool, UK. Dubai Next, Vitra Design Museum (Zaha Hadid Fire Station) Weil um Rhein, Germany. Nimes Museum of Contemporary Art, Nimes, France. Self Po At the 6th Sharjah Biennale (April 2003, United Arab Emirates) the series "Self-portrait" by Tarek Al-Ghoussein was amongst those works that impressed us most. In light box photographs, he presented himself in various places with a keffiyeh around his head as if on a never-ending path. We got to know him personally when he walked through the Biennale with a group of students. He is professor of photography at the School of Architecture and Design at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) – the name, by the way, has nothing to do with the USA, but was given simply by the educational system. In our next issue, we will publish a major article on the school. Thanks to Tarek Al-Ghoussein’s support, we returned once again to Sharjah in April 2004 to hold a lecture at the college where he teaches. This provided us with the opportunity to learn more about his approach and to see what he has been dealing with in the past year. The visualization of his Palestinian identity – he was born in Kuwait and has never been to Palestine – has remained a constant in his work. But the new photographs are also existential metaphors. As Tarek Al-Ghoussein says, his series "Mounds" (completed at the end of 2003) is more intimate, already in format, than the large "Self-portraits" in the light boxes. Of course, one is immediately reminded of the fate of the Palestinians when one hears that the different types of "mounds" in the pictures represent "land" one is searching for, but is missing. But Tarek says he is dealing with something in a much broader sense – the impact of "barriers, land, and longing" on the awareness of identity. In this context, we came to talk about the barriers that Israel has erected on the borders to the Palestinian areas in West Jordan, while simultaneously annexing additional areas. Officially, references are to a "defense wall", which implies that there is a need for protection from the people on the other
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