Film
GCC
- 7PM
This eight-artist collective (whose intentionally nebulous name is an acronym that stands for nothing, but is best known in the Arabian world as the shorthand for Gulf Cooperation Council, an intergovernmental body that binds the Arabian Gulf region) creates installation work, video, and sculpture that mimic the aesthetics and rituals of globalized capital in the Gulf States. The effect “leaves us wondering exactly who they are poking fun at, the annals of political power or an art world that has fallen for their antics so swiftly” (Ibraaz). For Migrating Forms, GCC presents four single channel video works created for past projects—Vision Driven and Branded Objects (Rotating), CO-OP, l'Air du Temps, and Exosphere—and related ephemera that reflect the confluence of nation-building rhetoric and corporate branding in the Gulf region, including a sleek airline ad and an amateur conference video.
Abbas Fahdel’s epic, which captures daily life in his hometown of Baghdad leading up to the early weeks of the US occupation, has been called “the most significant work of art to come out of the Iraq war.”
This collection of short works by Basma Alsharif explores Palestine—its history, its politics, and the relationship between geographic space and cultural identity—through visual archaeology and documentary.