Fathers
2005-6
Colour photographs
Dimensions variable

Taysir Batniji
Born in 1966 in Gaza
Lives and works in France and Palestine

The works of Taysir Batniji that either concern photographs or video works, according to him, " collect particles of the real which they subsist in a segment between the visible and the invisible, the absence and the presence, the limits of obliteration… or of appearance." In the series of photographs under the title "Peres" (Fathers), the artist is portraying the interior of merchandise stores and cafés of Gaza in Palestine and more particularly the photographs of the store owners. Each photograph depicting the dead, usually previous owner, is interacting with the merchandise surroundings as also with other photographs of advertisements, presenting them as an allegory of the ancestors of the nation, the origins of the people. A picture which is located between the image of Saddam Hussein, of a poster in where a pack of American cigarettes is advertised, as also the picture of Rachel Corrie (the American activist who was killed in a demonstration by an Israeli Bulldozer), is a typical example of Taysir Batniji's work. The video work "Gaza Walls" occurs under the same concept of recording images which stand between the public and the private and it illustrates wall posters and pictures of people. The artist's concentration in depicting posters that appear to be faded and torn, and his interest towards the vivid colors work together in diverting the images into abstract fields.

Theodore Markoglou