With Beyond Borders and Time Regained the Empty Quarter Gallery has brought together two photographers whose work evokes the outline of a world, still lying hidden in the folds of time, shimmering elusively on the horizon.
Frederic Lezmi set out on a journey between Vienna and Beirut, searching for the blending spheres of the European and the Arab world, as well as his own identity as a German with a Lebanese father. Sinisa Vlajkovic, born in Serbia, discovered that, although culturally and geographically different, Lebanon and Syria held the key to a passage in time back to his own childhood during the seventies and the early eighties. For a long time, too long a time, the Arab and the European world have been regarding each other as the essential Other.
These two men, of a new generation, steer away from this cliché, seeking to find the places where these worlds intertwine and something new emerges that could perhaps be called Eurabia.
“We begin in Beirut. Two young men on a gondola ride are looking to the West. On their left side, we see an intact, 20th century cityscape, on the right, large scale reconstructions are underway. The passengers on the fair ground are caught in the heart of the dichotomy between these two worlds, the old and the new. […] We end in Vienna at the ramp entrance to an underground car-park, denoting both the idea of the road trip, and that perhaps our journey is yet to begin, this time from the light into the dark folds of the future, not knowing what it will bring, leaving behind the fragmented reflections of our past.â€
Thus might read the book review of Frederic Lezmi’s project Beyond Borders as written by Gerry Badger’s Arabian counterpart, one who would read the book from East to West, showing how multiple readings can open up new meanings and interpretations of the same material. This is what will happen with the first presentation of Lezmi’s work in an Arab country, and what makes this more than just a show traveling unchanged from one location to the other. Be welcome to witness the outcome of this experiment in reversed reading.
In addition, Frederic Lezmi will present a new work in Dubai, St udio Lezmi, in which he plays a double of game of portraiture with photo studios encountered on his visits to Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. This book will be available in print at the gallery book shop, but can also be downloaded for home printing at the website of democraticbooks.de.
Frederic Lezmi: Beyond Borders – From Vienna to Beirut
Where does the West end and the East begin? On a journey from Vienna to Beirut, LAI F photographer Frederic Lezmi documented the fluid transition from European to Middle Eastern. Lezmi spent four months driving in his car from Austria to Lebanon. Lezmi, himself half-Lebanese, grew up in Germany’s Black Forest region and wanted to explore
in more depth this state of ‘in-between’ that he had experienced between his Middle Eastern roots and his European home. Getting beyond the common clichés, Lezmi’s photos spotlight and question the way Orient and Occident merge and influence each other. Gradually, the ‘distant’ Arabic world seems closer to us than ever.
Between October and November 2007, laif photographer Frederic Lezmi visited portrait studios in Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, where he had his portrait taken and was able to choose how he posed for the camera and which background was used. Only then did Lezmi reveal that he too is a photographer and asked the portrait photographers to pose for him. While visiting the portrait studios in the Middle East, Lezmi also photographed the studios and all the bizarre things he found there: piles of dusty picture frames, photo film that had long expired, shelves full of old cameras and photo collages showing fantasy landscapes, mountain scenery, castles and villas.
Now that digital cameras have reached the masses in the Middle East, as well as the possibility of creating backgrounds digitally, hardly anyone these days goes to a photo studio to have his portrait taken. Many of these small family businesses will soon close for ever – as was the case in Europe a few years ago.
Frederic Lezmi , born 1978, grew up in Dakar, Geneva and the Black Forest. After a year as assistant to German photographer Wolgang Zurborn at Galerie Lichtblick in Cologne, he studied from 2002 to 2009 visual communication with an emphasis on documentary photography at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, Germany. In 2005/2006 he spend a study year in Beirut as a recipient of a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAD ). His graduation series „ From Vienna to Beirut“ has received the BFF-Promotion Award as well as the Reinhart-Wolf Prize 2009 for best final degree work in photography.
Frederic Lezmi lives and works as a freelance photographer based in Cologne, Germany.
Sinisa Vlajkovic – TIME REGAINED
Time Regained is a personal account of the artist’s residency in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates between 2003 and 2009, as well as his travels in the Middle East and beyond within that same period. Originally from Belgrade, Serbia, Sinisa Vlajkovic moved to Beirut from London in August 2002 to work as an art director for an international advertising agency and spent a full year observing the country and its people before actually picking up the camera. Initially, his aim was to portray everyday life in Lebanon but over time he became obsessed with discoveries of remnants of another time, a time that coincides with his childhood during the seventies and the early eighties, in a culturally and geographically entirely different corner of the world.
The photographs in this series search for spontaneity, imperfection and tradition and are flavored by mundane themes that characterise contemporary Middle Eastern societies. Voyeuristic but never intrusive, they attempt to map out a bigger picture by focusing on details and capturing moods. They also aim to revisit and preserve what remains of an era that holds personal sentimental value to the artist.
Sinisa Vlakovic was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1969 and graduated from the University of Belgrade in 1994 with an MS c in Town and Country Planning. In search of a more creative future, following a short spell in urban planning, he switched to graphic design and art direction. Between 1995 and present he lived and worked as an art director for advertising agencies in Belgrade, London, Beirut, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
