Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had
What Constitutes an Acceptable Landscape? Toleen Touq and Lillian O’Brien Davis
“In Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had, Nour Bishouty’s body of work explores the potential for fabulation through the contents of her father’s painting, Al-Wadi (c. 1981), in order to explore the complicated narratives of cultural identity contained within it. Ghassan Bishouty, the artist’s father, assembles the usual elements that make up his landscape painting; building, people, animals and plants. In a somewhat orientalist style, the painting clearly depicts a Bedouin settlement in a desert landscape in Jordan.
But through whose eyes? In the work of both father and daughter, other sides are revealed: some of fantasy and mystery, others of misunderstanding and projection.”
This exhibition engages with landscape and its representation as a site of other knowledges; rooted in peripheral and non-linear cultural practices that challenge the prevailing paradigms of hegemonic knowledge systems. It takes as a starting point an oil painting, Al-Wadi, made in the early 1980s by the artist’s late father, portraying an imagined scene of a Bedouin tribe settling near Qusayr Amra, the famous Umayyad castle in the desert of Jordan. Through installation, sculpture, works on paper, writing, and map projections, the works simultaneously locate and trouble the limits of understanding, measuring the painting against extractive modes of knowledge production that inflicted that very site not long before. Contradicting a process that leans steadily on research, Bishouty attemps to leverage obscurity to consider the potential of misunderstanding as a productive lens, intertwining and unfolding objects, images and ways of seeing.
—What Constitutes a Landscape? Curatorial essay by Toleen Touq and Lillian O’Brien Davis, Gallery44, 2022 Read the full text [PDF]
—Intergenerational Dialogue and Late Style in the Palestinian Diaspora, Tammer El-Sheikh, Gallery 44 Read the full essay [PDF]
Credits
Exhibition history: 2022, Gallery 44, in collaboration with SAVAC (Toronto)
Curators: Toleen Touq and Lillian O’Brien Davis
Photography: Darren Rigo
Thanks to: The Toronto Arts Council, The Ontario Arts Council
Nour Bishouty, Ghassan Bishouty, 0°, 0° (1981-83, 2022); oil on canvas, vinyl printed map projection
Nour Bishouty, Ghassan Bishouty, 0°, 0° (1981-83, 2022) Installation; oil on canvas, plywood, laser-etched glass — Photo: Darren Rigo
Nour Bishouty, Ghassan Bishouty, 0°, 0° (1981-83, 2022) Installation; oil on canvas, plywood, laser-etched glass — Photo: Darren Rigo
Nour Bishouty, Ghassan Bishouty, 0°, 0° (1981-83, 2022) Detail view - Installation; oil on canvas, plywood, laser-etched glass — Photo: Darren Rigo
Nour Bishouty, Ghassan Bishouty, 0°, 0° (1981-83, 2022) Detail view - Installation; oil on canvas, plywood, laser-etched glass — Photo: Darren Rigo
Nour Bishouty, Walkers Watchers (2022) Limited edition poster, die-cut sticker sheet multiple
On our Wadi Sabra adventure with Ali-f and Raweya, 2022/23, ink, gold leaf, collage and inkjet print — 61 x 49.53 (framed)
On our Wadi Sabra adventure with Ali-f and Raweya, 2022/23 (detail), ink, gold leaf, collage and inkjet print — 61 x 49.53 (framed)
Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had - Installation view, Gallery44 Toronto — Photo: Darren Rigo
Landscape/Legend (2022) Detail view - Installation, printed found images, map pins, paint
Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had (installation view), 2022, Gallery44 Toronto — Photo: Darren Rigo
Visible Regions (2022) Watercolour on paper
Visible Regions (2022) Watercolour on paper - Installation view
Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had (installation view), 2022, Gallery44 Toronto — Photo: Darren Rigo
Landscape/Legend (2022) Installation, printed found images, map pins, paint
Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had (detail view), 2022, Gallery44 Toronto — Photo: Darren Rigo
Nothing is lost except nothing at all except what is not had (installation view), 2022, Gallery44 Toronto — Photo: Darren Rigo