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Ismaïl Bahri - Digital, 2022 - Spazio Ferdinand Stuflesser, Pontives

Ismaïl Bahri, Digital, 2022. Videostill. Courtesy of the Artist and Grey Noise, Dubai. Photo by Tiberio Sorvillo

Ismaïl Bahri’s works have a meditative quality. The French-Tunisian artist adopts video, drawing, sculpture and sound as means of staging simple gestures, such as slowing the fall of water drops by making them run along an invisible thread or looking through a glass of ink at the reflected image of a moving city, filming a transparent drop of water on a wrist, revealing the rhythm of the heartbeat, or even placing a sheet of paper moved by the wind in front of the lens. These are minimal experiments, in which the artist places himself and the viewer in the condition of observers, to whom a presence, a detail or an unexpected secret may be revealed before their very eyes.

In the video on view at Pontives, Digital (2022), a POV shot lets the viewer identify with a man caught in a desert sandstorm. His gaze moves quickly, trying to protect himself from the incessant howling wind, until he comes across a small dune and leaves a handprint in the sand, which is then slowly erased by the waves of sand grains driven by the stormy air. A metaphor for time, in which the human and the geological overlap for a few brief moments. (M.P.)

ISMAÏL BAHRI 

Ismaïl Bahri (1978, Tunis, Tunisia) works between Tunis and Paris. Interested in phenomenology and observation, his oeuvre captures small experiments in duration, scale, visibility and resolution. Bahri’s work has been shown at the Jeu de Paume and Centre Pompidou, Paris; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; La Criée, Rennes; La Verrière, Brussels; Beirut Art Center; and Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe. His films have been selected for festivals such as TIFF, Toronto; NYFF, New York; IFFR, Rotterdam; and FID, Marseille. He is currently a fellow at Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome.

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Ismaïl Bahri - Digital, 2022 - Spazio Ferdinand Stuflesser, Pontives

Ismaïl Bahri, Digital, 2022. Videostill. Courtesy of the Artist and Grey Noise, Dubai. Photo by Tiberio Sorvillo

Ismaïl Bahri’s works have a meditative quality. The French-Tunisian artist adopts video, drawing, sculpture and sound as means of staging simple gestures, such as slowing the fall of water drops by making them run along an invisible thread or looking through a glass of ink at the reflected image of a moving city, filming a transparent drop of water on a wrist, revealing the rhythm of the heartbeat, or even placing a sheet of paper moved by the wind in front of the lens. These are minimal experiments, in which the artist places himself and the viewer in the condition of observers, to whom a presence, a detail or an unexpected secret may be revealed before their very eyes.

In the video on view at Pontives, Digital (2022), a POV shot lets the viewer identify with a man caught in a desert sandstorm. His gaze moves quickly, trying to protect himself from the incessant howling wind, until he comes across a small dune and leaves a handprint in the sand, which is then slowly erased by the waves of sand grains driven by the stormy air. A metaphor for time, in which the human and the geological overlap for a few brief moments. (M.P.)

ISMAÏL BAHRI 

Ismaïl Bahri (1978, Tunis, Tunisia) works between Tunis and Paris. Interested in phenomenology and observation, his oeuvre captures small experiments in duration, scale, visibility and resolution. Bahri’s work has been shown at the Jeu de Paume and Centre Pompidou, Paris; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; La Criée, Rennes; La Verrière, Brussels; Beirut Art Center; and Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe. His films have been selected for festivals such as TIFF, Toronto; NYFF, New York; IFFR, Rotterdam; and FID, Marseille. He is currently a fellow at Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome.