{"id":36251,"date":"2025-02-21T09:46:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T07:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=36251"},"modified":"2025-08-19T15:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:42:08","slug":"finding-emptiness-gaza-artist-taysir-batniji-in-beirut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/finding-emptiness-gaza-artist-taysir-batniji-in-beirut\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Emptiness: Gaza Artist Taysir Batniji in Beirut"},"content":{"rendered":"
Watching the war on Gaza in which he lost his sister, from his home in Paris, has been hard on Batniji. But he did resume work, and the recent destruction weighs on several pieces in his new show at the Sfeir-Semler Gallery in Beirut.<\/span><\/h5>\n

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Jim Quilty<\/span><\/h4>\n

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\u201cWe hope that the war will stop at least,\u201d says <\/span>Taysir Batniji<\/span><\/a>. In a few hours his exhibition <\/span>Just in Case<\/span><\/i> will open at <\/span>Sfeir-Semler <\/span><\/a>Gallery<\/span>\u2019s Beirut port space, running through March 25. The Gaza ceasefire of Jan. 19, 2025, has yet to be announced.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know it cannot bring the end of suffering,\u201d adds the Gaza-born artist, \u201cbut at least the killing will stop.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Watching the war on Gaza from his home in Paris has been hard on Batniji. \u201cFor two, maybe three months, I couldn\u2019t work because of what happened to my family,\u201d he admits. \u201cI lost more than 60 people, [including] my sister, so it was impossible to think artistically. It was difficult to speak, even.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He did resume work, and the recent destruction weighs on several pieces in this show.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just in Case<\/span><\/i> is a relatively compact exhibition that is at once understated and powerful. A pair of older pieces greets visitors upon entering. \u201cUntitled,\u201d 1998-2021, is an open suitcase filled with sand. Another piece, also <\/span>\u201c<\/span><\/i>Untitled,\u201d from 1997, is a series of 20 rolled canvases, each bearing a rust imprint, as if from an oversized key of the sort Palestinians carried with them when displaced from their homes in 1948. But most of the works on show at Sfeir-Semler \u2014 abstract and figurative pieces, series of photos, sketches and paintings \u2014 are selected from the artist\u2019s recent practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

The strength of these pieces attests to the decades of catastrophe that resonate through Batniji\u2019s practice. Their subtlety betrays the artist\u2019s strategies to continue working even as occupation policies in Gaza grew more brutal in recent years.<\/span><\/p>\n