Peggy Ahwesh (b. 1954)
Beirut Outtakes (2007)
7:30 min, color, sound
Fragments from movies found in an abandoned cinema in Beirut. Retrieved by Mr. Salloum. Assembled by Ms. Ahwesh.
Composed entirely of film scraps salvaged from a closed Beirut cinema, Beirut Outtakes is a collage of sensational visions. Ed Halter writes in the Village Voice: "Outtakes appears to be a ready-made, albeit one tailor-made for Ahwesh's career obsessions, pre-filled with her signature elements: gleeful disruptions of high and low, affection for decayed textures, a peeping eye for lurid sexuality, and a fascination with unlikely images of the Middle East. Just one sequence of a go-go-booted belly dancer wriggling in an Arabic-language cinema advertisement for home air conditioners alone has the power to shatter more stereotypes than 500 pages of Edward Said."
Peggy Ahwesh has made mesmerizing, experimental films and videos for two decades. Her eclectic works explore gender and cultural identities through deeply textured visuals and fascinating narratives. Her work explores dark themes of ritual, sexual exploration, and death through medium-precise methods, from grainy Super-8 to decayed 16mm to the virtuality of digital video. She has taught at Brown University, the San Francisco Art Institute, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the School of Visual Arts, and currently teaches at Bard College.
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