the bitter watches of the self tagreed darghouth profile Lebanese-born Tagreed Darghouth proved that ‘beauty knows no pain’ in her groundbreaking Mirror, Mirror! series, which tackled aspirations of beauty against suggestive societal norms. In her upcoming series, Fair & Lovely, she poses the question: whose hand rocks the cradle? T E X T BY M Y R N A AYA D P H O T O G R A P H Y BY M A N S O U R D I B A N D I M A G E S C O U R T E S Y O F A G I A L A R T G A L L E R Y he Mona Lisa is not the only portrait whose eyes follow you. at the plastic surgeon as she is being examined. Either way, Amidst numerous paintings of bandaged women and men she seems at her most vulnerable, most desperate, helpless hanging in Beirut’s Agial Art Gallery, the woman in Tagreed moment. It would be easy to impose possible narratives – Darghouth’s Before follows me ceaselessly. My eyes dart from she may want to keep her midlife crisis at bay or even that portraits of puffy-faced girls with gauzed noses to swollen- of her husband’s, she may be a widow keen to start afresh, faced women with black she may want to maintain her strips covering their eyes. youth or her husband may have The woman in Before is still left her for a younger woman… following me. There are young “We’re always being But narratives are what powerful men with plasters on their fuelled by thoughts and artworks are meant to provoke. noses and female torsos that images that the good “I always want to leave it up to feature reconstructed breasts life is synonymous with the viewer to decide,” smiles or thick black marker pen lines beauty and we are told that Darghouth. As viewers, we don’t drawn on body parts ready for even know which body part liposuction. All of the portraits achieving beauty means the lady in Before is keen on are painted in a thick impasto, having plastic surgery.” changing but what we do have almost like a metaphor for the is an insight into the emotional emotional layers involved in struggle that she is battling having plastic surgery. Only the woman in Before is void of within. “We are vulnerable to this fear at all times,” adds any trace of surgical invasiveness and had she not sat among Darghouth, adamant that plastic surgery cannot free a person an ostensible ‘recovery room’ full of post-op patients, it would of this “riddling, innate, inflicted fear.” The charged words of be hard to guess that she is precisely where her counterparts JFK ring in – ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ and were: in those restless pre-op instants when all one does is re- the fear, Darghouth believes, is created and propelled by the question what brought them there for physical change. “That media. “We’re always being fuelled by thoughts and images is precisely my point,” says Darghouth, “that internal fear or that the good life is synonymous with beauty and we are told anxiety which they have will always remain. Plastic surgery that achieving beauty means having plastic surgery.” won’t change that, not before and not after.” Opening spread: Untitled. 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 100 x 150 cm. We do not know if the woman in Before is staring at Facing Page: Before. 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 100 x 80 cm. Private Collection, Dubai. her naked self in her bathroom mirror or if she is staring back 139 profile “I wanted to capture them in these moments of anxiety and fear, as they’re healing and don’t know if the surgery has been a success. It’s a chance they’ve taken on their faces and bodies, and this is when they question: is it worth all this physical and emotional pain?” Eye of the Beholder ask, then what is Contemporary art if not a documentation When Darghouth exhibited her (ongoing) plastic surgery series of the here and now? Where her Contemporary counterparts Mirror, Mirror! in July 2008 at Agial, shockwaves reverberated in Walid Raad (Canvas 5.2), Akram Zaatari (Canvas 6.1), Ayman the Lebanese capital’s press and among some members of its Baalbaki (Canvas 5.2), Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, collector base. Local media reprimanded her tackling of “very among others, deal with the infrastructural and conceptual dark issues” while one collector “who had had a lot of plastic ramifications following the wars in Lebanon, Darghouth deals surgery done, complained to the gallery and claimed that I was with social issues that hark back to the populace’s physical and cornering her in a sense!” laughs Darghouth. Whatever the whys emotional requirements. That is a concept which while local, and wherefores, Mirror, Mirror! sold out and gave Darghouth a can be easily broadened to a global perspective. “In fact,” morale boost as well as the financial opportunity to simply “buy adds Darghouth, “all of my portraits are inspired by images additional and better materials to paint more.” The majority of I find on the Internet and local and international magazines works exhibited focused on people who had just had plastic and newspapers.” Sometimes, random people give her their surgery – it wasn’t a body of work filled with people in agonising images, as in the case of an 18-year-old girl who was given a pain, stitched up and covered in bandages, but rather, a body nose-job as a birthday present by her mother. “That was just of work that encapsulated the emotional unknown following plain shameful,” says Darghouth, disgruntled, “this is a young plastic surgery. “I wanted to capture them in these moments woman whose life ambition was to marry someone rich, and of anxiety and fear, as they’re healing and don’t know if the despite not having fully matured physically, is not mature about surgery has been a success. It’s a chance they’ve taken on her body, let alone making a decision like this!” their faces and bodies, and this is when they question: is it It would be almost fair to say that after the patient and worth all this physical and emotional pain?” the plastic surgeon, Darghouth is the third person who knows Granted, plastic surgery may be sensitive to tackle, the patient’s face all too well. Having stared at and pondered not least for some of Darghouth’s graphic post-op portrayals, hundreds of faces, Darghouth can now “immediately” tell if but perhaps also because Lebanon is socially positioned someone has had plastic surgery. “Something in their anatomy as a plastic surgery hotbed and some of its nationals don’t tells me and when I choose the faces, I look at them and see if want to see a reflection of that in the art world. “Still,” stresses there is a connection between the face and myself and whether Darghouth, “it is a topic that is relevant to the Lebanese I would like to work on that face,” she says. and has become a trend that people orient to, regardless of So is Darghouth for or against plastic surgery? “I didn’t whether they need it or not.” If not relevant to now, one might want my opinion on plastic surgery to come through in my artworks,” she admits, “I wanted to be objective, like a journalist, Previous spreads: Left: Tarek. 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 200 x 150 cm. Private Collection, Dubai. Right: Leen. 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 200 x 150 cm. Private Collection, Dubai. albeit reporting figuratively, but it was only after I worked on this Facing Page: Are you Ready?. 2009. Acrylic on canvas. 180 x 150 cm. subject that I realised I am against it.” 142 “I am also exposing how we never ask ourselves how they [helpers] are, especially as we are entrusting our children in their care.” profile Who Pulls The Strings? solely on conflict. “Dolls are like us, except on a smaller scale,” Initially planning on a degree in interior design, Darghouth says Darghouth, “they are objects you can destroy, throw spontaneously penned in ‘drawing’ during registration at the around, love or enjoy just as humans do to each other and Lebanese University’s Institute of Fine Arts. “I was thrilled as it this doll cannot react or refuse what is happening to her.” had never occurred to me that I wanted to do this!” she says The immediate conclusion one might draw is that Darghouth excitedly. After graduating with a BA in 2000, she completed experienced some misfortune in her 30-year-old life. “Not at another year of art school at the École Nationale Superieure all,” she smiles, “now that I feel independent and happy, I look des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2003, having studied French around and see how others fear age.” This inextricable notion beforehand. In the summers of 2000 and 2001, Darghouth no doubt contributed to the concept of the Mirror, Mirror! series, attended workshops at Amman’s Darat Al-Funun, working which in turn has led to Darghouth’s latest series, Fair & Lovely under famed Syrian/German artist Marwan (Canvas 4.6) and – a collection tackling domestic helpers and how they have producing works of an Abstract colour combination. In 2004, become the proverbial ‘hand that rocks the cradle’. she exhibited the works done at Darat Al-Funun at Beirut’s Zico Taking its name from a skin-whitening cream popular House, a grassroots cultural platform, and then approached among South East Asian and African communities, Fair & the city’s Goethe Institute, where she exhibited her first series, Lovely is derived from Darghouth’s belief in a subject that is Falling Parts in March 2006. It was there that Darghouth was “neglected on social and governmental levels.” Aside from discovered by Saleh Barakat, Agial’s founder, who signed this disregard is Darghouth’s delving into societal attitudes her onto the gallery’s impressive roster of artists. “Saleh towards house-helpers and nannies, down to the derogatory encourages me all the time and takes a risk in showing young words associated with them – ‘’abdi’ (slave), ‘san’aa’ (maid) artists,” she smiles, discussing her contemporaries, [Ayman] or ‘khadmi’ (servant). “I am also exposing how we never ask Baalbaki and Oussama Baalbaki who have both been ourselves how they are, especially as we are entrusting our featured at Dubai Christie’s auctions and are fast becoming children in their care,” she says. Just as Before can be read rising stars. outside the context of plastic surgery, so too can Ceila Holding Falling Parts featured paintings of dolls that implied the Baby, which features only a pair of arms holding a child the notion of ageing as something irrevocable, stretching the and another untitled work in which the baby is replaced with a metaphor to an allegory – these dolls were likened to those puppy. “I see some [helpers] walking dogs in the afternoon and who feel weak or fragile at certain times in their life. At the same I feel, well maybe she needs a break!” exclaims Darghouth. No time, Darghouth’s intention was to draw an obscure parallel doubt when Fair & Lovely is shown on 25 March at Agial, it will to the wars in Lebanon through her disfiguration of the dolls do more than raise a few eyebrows. Perhaps it will do precisely – something the local media caught onto quickly, dubbing what the Mona Lisa does: astound, but mesmerise you with them “aggressive” and claiming that Falling Parts focused her expression. Previous spreads: Left: The Runaways. 2009–10. Acrylic on costume fabric laid on canvas. 135 x 105 cm (45 x 35 cm each). Tagreed Darghouth’s Fair & Lovely will show at Agial Right: Moulou Holding the Baby. 2010. Acrylic on costume fabric laid on canvas. 120 x 100 cm. Facing page: Flora Holding the Baby. 2010. Acrylic on costume fabric laid on canvas. 120 x 100 cm. from 25 March−17 April. For more information visit www.agialart.com 147
Enter the password to open this PDF file:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-