Shakeeb Abu Hamdan · Flattened to a Papery Thinness

Shakeeb Abu Hamdan’s solo show in BAC’s Gallery 2 is something of a botched crime scene, a literal paper trail through relentless iterations –including discrete drawings, large historical friezes, disorienting spatial experiments, and cryptic dioramas— Shakeeb  has been broadening his eclectic library of found, manipulated comic references, decontextualized educational drawings, as well as his own drawings and scribbles. Throughout, he has honed in on a visual repertoire that not only advances narrative in unexpected ways but also, becomes a structural device that stands in for the act of reading itself. Thus, a gap between a character’s teeth becomes an ellipsis, a sandwich becomes a narrative hinge, a window doubles as a vignette, a pothole as a time portal and so on. What is developed through this is a real theory of history. Playing with linear comic structures, line textures, scale and perspective, Shakeeb’s work presents a wry take on disaster as contingency, and the profound unease of history as farce.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Shakeeb will also launch his new book published with Samandal Comics in English and Arabic. While the book draws narrative threads that take the reader through historical factoids from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to the hallucinations of Sirhan Sirhan recounting voices in his head urging him to shoot Robert Kennedy; the installation is meant to function more like a proposition about the legibility of space.

Featured Artist: Shakeeb Abu Hamdan

Production Team
Technical Director: Nadim Deaibes
Technical Team: Rawad Kanj . Salim Abou Ayash . Ehab Zaheredeen
Translation: Ziad Chakaroun . Hussein Nassereddine
Graphic Design: Farah El Samman
Printing: Al-Matba’a Printing
Carpentry – Installation: Georges Moussalli
AV Maintenance: Fadi Awad
Electrical Works: Eng. Fadi Gharib . Abed El Aziz Khnayfes . Ahmad Khnayfes
Construction: Khaled Awad . Elias Awad . Milad Chahine . Tony Chahine
Metalwork: Taleb El Saj
Painting: Louay Abdel Haq . Souheil Salouh
Transportation: Charbel El Helou
Maintenance: Ara Giragossian
Production Support: Nabil Zeitoun

Special Thanks
Sursock Museum . Karen Keyrouz . Adel Khoury . Ziad Moukarzel . Elie Issa Trad . Rita Giragossian . Pamela Giragossian