They Were Blind, They Only Saw Images

By Mounir Fatmi

"Yvon Lambert is pleased to announce They were blind, they only saw images, the first exhibition of mounir fatmi who be held at the gallery from January the 30st to March 8th, 2014. For this occasion, the Moroccan artist will present new works questioning the paradoxes of the representations of the Sacred through identity and controversy. By using numerous media as installation, video, prints or performance, mounir fatmi continues his exploration of different languages; mystical texts of Sufism, essays of Spinoza to the controversial writings of Salman Rushdie.
mounir fatmi highlights his desire to make visible for the spectator the more often paradoxical aspect of our comprehension of images. With this exhibition, he invites us to take part in a travel of senses, going over the simple act of seeing, in a place where the dialog between physical and metaphysical can take place."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mounir Fatmi
• Release date: Nov 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005642273

Mounir Fatmi

mounir fatmi is a visual artist born in Tangier, Morocco in 1970. He constructs visual spaces and linguistic games. His work deals with the desecration of religious objects, deconstruction, and the end of dogmas and ideologies. He questions the world and plays with its codes and precepts under the prism of architecture, language and the machine. He is particularly interested in the idea of the role of the artist in a society in crisis. mounir fatmi's work offers a look at the world from a different glance, refusing to be blinded by convention. He brings to light our doubts, fears and desires.He has published several books and art catalogs including: The Kissing Precise, with Régis Durand, La Muette edition, Brussels, 2013, Suspect Language, with Lillian Davies, Skira edition, Italy, 2012, This is not blasphemy, in collaboration with Ariel Kyrou, Inculte-Dernier Marge & Actes Sud edition, 2015, History is not Mine, SF Publishing, Paris, 2015, and Survival Signs, SF Publishing, Paris, 2017. He has also participated in the collective book, Letter to a young Moroccan, edition Seuil, Paris, 2009.He has participated in several solo and collective exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world including: Mamco, Geneva, The Picasso Museum, Vallauris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, N.B.K., Berlin, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, MAXXI, Rome, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, the Hayward Gallery, London, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.His installations have been selected in biennials such as the 52nd and the 57th Venice Biennial, the 8th biennial of Sharjah, the 5th Dakar Biennial, the 2nd Seville Biennial, the 5th Gwangju Biennial and the 10th Lyon Biennial, the 5th Auckland Triennial, Fotofest 2014, Houston, the 10th and 11th Bamako Encounters, as well as the 7th Biennale of Architecture in Shenzhen.mounir fatmi was awarded several prizes such as the Cairo Biennial Prize in 2010, the Uriöt prize, Amsterdam, the Grand Prize Leopold Sedar Senghor of the 7th Dakar Biennial in 2006 as well and he was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London in 2013.

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Yvon Lambert is pleased to announce They were blind, they only saw images, the first exhibition of mounir fatmi who be held at the gallery from January the 30st to March 8th, 2014. For this occasion, the Moroccan artist will present new works questioning the paradoxes of the representations of the Sacred through identity and controversy. By using numerous media as installation, video, prints or performance, mounir fatmi continues his exploration of different languages; mystical texts of Sufism, essays of Spinoza to the controversial writings of Salman Rushdie.

mounir fatmi highlights his desire to make visible for the spectator the more often paradoxical aspect of our comprehension of images. With this exhibition, he invites us to take part in a travel of senses, going over the simple act of seeing, in a place where the dialog between physical and metaphysical can take place.

The exhibition will start with the projection of the video Sleep Al Naim devoted to Salman Rushdie ; formal reference to the experimental film realized in 1963 by Andy Warhol and representing the poet John Giorno while he is sleeping. Not able to directly meet the british writer, mounir fatmi uses for this video the new technologies of image to create the presence of Rushdie, but also to symbolize the contradictory status of the author, suspended in a kind of physical abandon between vulnerability and quiet force.

Who is Joseph Anton, work also inspired by Rushdie, shows us the interest of mounir fatmi regarding composite drawings. For this work, ink jet printed on mirror, he uses as a pretext Rushdie’s pseudonym — Joseph Anton — composed with the names of writers Joseph Conrad and Anton Chechkov. By building an unique portrait from faces of the three writers, mounir fatmi creates for the spectator the visual experience of a new identity, the one of a fugitive.

Divine Illusion, created with the same ink jet technique, superimposes studies drawing from Rorschach test over pages from religious books. With this series of works, mounir fatmi seeks to