Lebanese director Rania Stephan’s first solo art exhibition, which documents the artistic process around two of her previous films, is being held by Beirut gallery Marfa’ until August 31.Befitting an exhibition that focuses on being between two things, this show is entitled “On Never Being Simply One,” and features a number of works that make this liminal space literal. In the series “Invisible Images to the Naked Eye,” 2016, Stephan presents a series of stills of double exposures achieved by photographing the exact moment at which two shots in her ongoing film project “Memories for a Private Eye” (2015-) cross-cut into each other, creating what Stephan calls “fictional memories.”On the other hand, “64 Dusks,” 2010-16, can be considered part of the project that resulted in Stephan’s best-known film “The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni” (2011), which ruminates on the life and mysterious death of the eponymous Egyptian cinema star through footage from Hosni's movies. “64 Dusks” looks in more detail at her death, with Stephan taking photos wherever she was at the exact time of day that the actress fell from a London tower block window, “hoping, perhaps, to capture her last light,” according to a press release. “64 Dusks” also features a film that the artist shot in 2010 around the scene of Hosni’s death.Another installation in the exhibition, “Who Else Could It Be,” 2016, is a further instalment on what Stephan sees as the enigma of Soad Hosni.“Rania Stephan: On Never Being Simply One” runs through August 31 at Marfa’.
↧