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| Partial view of
This Is Not to Say that This Is Not the Case,
mixed-media, 2004. |
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“Brecht: ‘This beer
isn’t a beer, but that is compensated for by the fact
that this cigar isn’t a cigar either. If this beer
wasn’t a beer and this cigar really was a cigar, then
there would be a problem.’ In the same manner, this
war is not a war, but this is compensated for by the fact
that information is not information either.” (Jean
Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place).
Saddam is not “Hitler revisited,” but this is
compensated for by the possibility, entertained by the Western
intelligence agencies when confronted by one of his televised
appearances, that Saddam is not Saddam (but a look-alike).
The hysterical eponymous protagonist of Hitchcock’s
Marnie is neither Margaret Edgar nor Peggy Nicholson
nor Mary Taylor (the names she assumes in her various jobs),
but that is compensated for by the fact that the drop that
triggers her panicked reaction is not blood but red ink,
and by the suspicion that the hull at the end of the street
where her mother resides is not really a ship but a painted
backdrop. In addition to Hitler (and his Beer Hall Putsch),
Saddam (and his cigar), and Marnie, This Is Not to Say
that This Is Not the Case (2004) brings to mind the
symmetry trick, time transfixed, elective affinities, boundless
recognition, decalcomania, the false mirror, the treachery
of images, the alarm clock, the voice of blood, check mate,
the killer in danger, swift hope, freedom of thought, attempting
the impossible. |
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| This Is Not Hitler,
1940s version (Looped excerpt from Ernst Lubitsch’s
To Be or Not to Be, 1942). |
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This Is Not Hitler, 2003
version (Looped TV footage of Saddâm Husayn, April
2003). |
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| This Is Not Blood,
but Red (Looped excerpt from Alfred Hitchcock’s
Marnie, 1964). |
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| Looped excerpt from Marnie.
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Top
Magritte, The Treachery of Images, 1928-1929,
oil on canvas, 62.2 x 81 cm, Los Angeles County
Museum.
Right
This Is Not Magritte’s The Treachery
of Images. |
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Exhibitions:
— Premiered at Present Absence: Contemporary
Art from Lebanon, curated by Anne Maier, Galerie
Tanit, Munich, 7 May - 25 June 2004.
— Love It or Leave It, the 5th Biennial
of Cetinje, curated by Rene Block, Kassel, and Natasa
Ilic, Zagreb, and realized by the National Museum of Montenegro
in cooperation with Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel,
Germany, 20 July - 19 September 2004.
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© 2005–2015 by Jalal Toufic. All rights reserved.
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