in-sight-out

in-sight-out artworks by Cam Lecce May Haddad Jörg Christoph Grünert Jörg Christoph Grünert May Haddad Cam Lecce artworks by

in-sight-out

Cam Lecce May Haddad Jörg Christoph Grünert

in-sight-out Ras Beirut Cultural Center

Hotel Golden Tulip Serenada, Abdel Aziz Street, Hamra - Beirut 2 settembre - 30 novembre 2018

curator of the exhibition and texts of the catalogue: Jörg Christoph Grünert

Cam Lecce May Haddad Jörg Christoph Grünert

in-sight-out Ras Beirut Cultural Center Hotel Golden Tulip Serenada, Abdel Aziz Street, Hamra - Beirut

2 settembre - 30 novembre 2018

curator of the exhibition and texts of the catalogue: Jörg Christoph Grünert cover, graphics, layout: Jörg Christoph Grünert fotographic references: Jörg Christoph Grünert, May Haddad translations: May Haddad, Jörg Christoph Grünert, Cam Lecce, Giorgio Tomasi editing management: Cam Lecce editor: Associazione Deposito Dei Segni Onlus event management: May Haddad press office: May Haddad, Cam Lecce

2018 DEPOSITO DEI SEGNI ISBN 9788890930720 printed in Italy

€ 12,00

INDEX p. 4 p. 8 p. 18 p. 28 p. 46

Introduction by Jörg Christoph Grünert The Theatre masks of Cam Lecce Artworks by May Haddad

Artworks by Jörg Christoph Grünert About the authors

in-sight-out introduction by Jörg Christoph Grünert The “in-sight-out” exhibition is a personal triple. The title “insight-out” is intuitional, and summarizes a creative process that the three authors have in common. They use introspection, and self reflection, as a source for triggering creative processes in the production of their works. These processes are not activated for pure aesthetic or artistic sense, but to elaborate visions and re-examine experiences, horizons of humanity. In the work on themselves they make the culture and the human events work together.

The masks of Cam Lecce, characters of the Commedia Dell’Arte and the Cosmogony, through processing precious and charming patinas, speak to us of the ancestral anthropological value of the mask not only for its theatrical value but also for its sociological and ritual values that the mask represents from the earliest days of human beings till today.

May Haddad’s works, watercolours, material works, collages and the Zenobia mask punctuate her sensitivity and passion for human events that the author lives and witnesses. The works are inspired by the creative processes she experienced during her visit to the atelier of Cam Lecce and Jörg Christoph Grünert in Italy in 2015.

The four groups of works presented by Jörg Christoph Grünert, the watercolours of “Night Diaries”, “Topos II-V”, “Zeitengen I-IV (Lebanese version)”, “hommage à la liberté”, are part of the artistic research that the author has brought forward for decades.

The “Night Diaries” (since 2003, over a hundred watercolours) show us that art is a language, that it is possible to form an “alphabet” of feelings, sensations, perceptions and proprioceptive faculty through the meditation of the composition, colours and shapes that underlie the creative process of the language of art.

The “Topos II-V” works belong to the artistic vein that the author calls “meditating on material”. Although these works present themselves as abstract material compositions, the author 4

seeks, through a mimesic creative process with the material itself, to give shape to the absolute value, the ecological value that material represents in itself. This value has been lost in consumer societies in which the material has only a utilitarian value of exchange, consumption or social status.

“Zeitengen I-IV (Lebanese version)” are included in groups of environments, performances, installations, sculptures, paintings and drawings in which the artist re-formulates his questions, criticisms, visions and enigmas placed directly to the social, political and anthropological contemporaneity of human beings.

These four works are accompanied / compared by and with four examples (paintings) belonging to the “hommage à la liberté” environment that directly represents the artist’s atelier, that is, his personal cultural world and his subjectivity.

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‫هذه نأ نم مغرلا ىلع ‪.‬اهانعم و “داوملا يف لمأت“ يه “سوبوت” ةعومجم‬ ‫لالخ نم ‪،‬ىعسي فلؤملا نإف ‪ ،‬داوملل ًايديرجت ًاليكشت ‪ ‬مدقت لامعألا‬ ‫ةميقلل لكش قلخ ىلإ ‪ ،‬اهسفن داوملا عم ‪ ‬ةيعادبإ ةيليكشت ةيلمع‬ ‫غيصي و ‪،‬اهتاذ دح يف‪ ‬ةدام لك اهلثمت يتلا ةقلطملا ةيجولوكيإلا‬ ‫نيح‪، ‬ةيكالهتسالا تاعمتجملا نمز يف كلذ ‪، ‬ةعيبطلل ةيباسح ةيلمع‬ ‫وأ كالهتسالا وأ لدابتلل ةيعفن ةميق ‪ ‬حبصتل اهتميق داوملا تدقف‬ ‫‪. ‬يعامتجالا بصنملا‬ ‫حرط نانفلا دواعي ‪)،‬ةينانبللا ةخسنلا( “نجنتياز ةعومجم” نمض‬ ‫و ةيسايسلاو ةيعامتجالا ةرصاعملا لوح هتيؤر و ‪،‬هتاداقتنإ و‪، ‬هتلئسأ‬ ‫عبرأ ‪ ،‬اههجاوت و لامعألا بحاصت و ‪.‬ةيرشبلا تانئاكلل‪ ‬ةيجولوبورثنألا‬ ‫ىلإ رشابم لكشب يمتنت يتلا و “ةيرحلا ىلإ ةيحت”‪ ‬ةعومجم نم تاحول‬ ‫‪.‬هتفاقث و نانفلا ملاع‬

‫‪6‬‬

‫ايؤر ىلإ ةيؤر نم‬ ‫دادح يم ‪:‬فرصتب ةمجرت‬ ‫كرتشي يتلا ةيعادبإلا تايلمعلا لوح“ايؤر ىلإ ةيؤر نم” ضرعم ‪ ‬رودي‪ ‬‬ ‫عضو وحن‪، ‬عادبإلا و‪ ‬لمأتلا و ناطبتسالا ‪ ‬نم ةثالثلا نوفلؤملا اهيف‬ ‫‪.‬ثادحألا عم ةفاقثلا جمد و ةيناسنإلا قافآلا مهف يف ىؤر‬ ‫هَّشيِل ماَك ةعنقأ‬ ‫يحرسملا نفلا ‪ ‬تايصخش نع يه ةيلاطيإلا ةنانفلا ‪،‬هَّشيِل ماَك ةعنقأ‬ ‫نم تايصخشلا انثداحت ‪.‬ةينوك تايصخش نع و‪، ‬يلاطيإلا يديموكلا‬ ‫مايألا ذنم اهلوح روحمتت يتلا ةيعامتجإلا و ةيسوقطلا‪ ‬اهتميق لالخ‬ ‫‪.‬ةيحرسملا ةينفلا اهتميق بناج ىلإ اذه ‪،‬انموي ىتحو و ناسنإلل‪ ‬ىلوألا‬ ‫‪“. ‬ةريثم ةيرس ةايح ةعنقألل و” ‪:‬ماك لوقت‬ ‫دادح يم ل ةينف لامعأ‬ ‫يف سان قرغ و ةيديزي ةأرمإ باصتغإ ‪،‬ايبونز نم دادح يم لامعأ دهشت‬ ‫‪،‬طسوألا قرشلا يف اهشيعن يتلا ةيساقلا ثادحألا ىلع‪ ‬ةجيإ رحب‬ ‫‪ ‬ىرخألا لامعألا نمضتت‬ ‫راجحأ يف سان و هوجو ‪،‬تومت رويطلا‪، ‬تقزمت ةناحرفلا تنبلا جالوك‬ ‫و ماك تاينقت نم ةنانفلا تحوتسإ دق و‪ ‬اذه ‪.‬بيلويتلا و ‪،‬ةيناكرب‬ ‫اهنم و ‪ ٢٠١٥، ‬رايأ يف‪ ‬ايلاطيإ ‪،‬يروتلابس ل اهترايز ءانثأ ةينفلا ‪ ‬غروي‬ ‫‪. ‬ةعنقألا ةعانص و جالوكلا و ةيئاملا ناولألاا تاينقت‬ ‫ينوُرُغ فوتسرك غروي ل ةينف‪ ‬لامعأ‬ ‫‪: ‬يه ‪،‬ةينفلا لامعألا نم تاعومجم ةعبرأ ‪ ‬ينوُرُغ فوتسرك غروي مدقي‬ ‫ةعومجم و “نجنتياز” ةعومجم ‪“ ،‬سوبوت” ةعومجم ‪“، ‬ةيليل تايموي”‬ ‫يف غروي هلوادتي يذلا ينفلا ثحبلا نمض نم اهعيمج‪“. ‬ةيرحلل ةيحت”‬ ‫‪. ‬هلامعأ‬ ‫ذنم ةيئام ناولأ نم ةحول ةئم نم رثكأ( ةيليل تايموي ةعومجم نيبت‬ ‫رعاشملا نم ”ةيدجبأ“ ليكشت نكمملا نم هنأو ‪ ،‬ةغل نفلا نأ ‪ ٢٠٠٣)،‬ماع‬ ‫لاكشألا و ‪،‬ناولألاو ‪،‬نيوكتلا يف لمأتلا لالخ نم روصتلاو ‪ ‬سيساحألاو‬ ‫‪.‬نفلا ةغلل ةيعادبإلا ةيلمعلا ءارو نمكت يتلا‬ ‫‪7‬‬

Arlecchino

Cam Lecce

The theatre masks of Cam Lecce - Jörg Christoph Grünert Cam Lecce’s masks are made with the ancient technique of layered papier-mâché and finished with precious patinas 1. The subjects range from Commedia dell’Arte, i.e. Pulcinella, Zanni, etc., to the Harlequin, to the Venetian Bauta or to the mask of the Japanese Kabuki theatre, but also to characters invented by her and to compositions of ancestral symbols such as the sun and the moon. The clay models made to obtain the plaster casts in alabaster chalk to print the masks are made by the author or are still from the old workshop of the deceased sculptor Giancamillo Rossi, mask maker and puppeteer, master of our author.

The difficult technique of making the masks and the quality of the manufacture are expressed by the author with great refinement and eloquence and the expression of her masks reflects her profound knowledge of the classical subjects as well as the culture of the mask in anthropological terms.

Special, and much appreciated, is the research of Cam Lecce on the patinas that in addition to being valuable create a very special charm. The colours and materiality of the patinas, which range from the effects of precious metals, materials such as leather, moulds, historical archaeological findings and organic colours, create a reviviscent expression of the masks and a “stage” presence of great emotional impact. The vision of the mask by Cam Lecce, whose production gives us its anthropological universalism and combines the sense of the presence of the mask from the dawn of humanity, with its necessary contemporaneity expressing beyond the splendour of the single artefacts our deep human bond with masks as theatrical, worship, and ritual means. Masks go from their being artefacts of artistic craftsmanship to a recognizable vision of a world of artistic conception tout court.

The “in-sight-out” exhibition includes seven masks of the Commedia dell’Arte: Arlecchino, Bauta veneziana, Captain, Doctor in time of plague, Pantalone, Pulcinella, Zanni, and two masks of the cosmogony of the sun and the moon: sun - moon and moon cycle characterized by a central spiral that unites the decreasing and increasing phase in a continuous flow. The patinas 1 The origin of papier-mâché is to be referred to the Chinese who used it first at the beginning of the Christian era. From China, through the Arab world, papier-mâché arrived to Europe around the tenth century A.D. In Italy its use developed above all in the Renaissance, and it had its maximum splendour in the Baroque period. Papier-mâché was widely used in the Commedia dell’Arte that was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The main feature of Commedia dell’Arte was “subject acting”, i.e. acting without a script where the actors were “masks”, meaning the typical characters of the society whose characteristics were impersonated by masks (Harlequin, Pulcinella, Zanni, Captain, Pantalone, Doctor in time of Plague, Venetian Bauta, etc.). In the second half of the 20th century, thanks to Lecoq, Strelher, and Grassi, “masks” found an important place in artistic and theatrical productions in Italy and Europe.

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of Commedia dell’Arte masks have the effect of precious ancient metals, and four of them, the Captain, the Doctor in times of plague, Pantalone and Pulcinella also carry nuances of colours that suggest deep water.

The elegance and meaningfulness of these artefacts combined with the fineness of the patinas create an extraordinary impact; these masks look at us. The patinas of cosmogony masks are a union of gold, silver and more natural colours. Their presence makes us identify with the anthropomorphic symbolism belonging to the human feeling. Cam Lecce’s masks have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, art craft fairs such as the international fair Festival of Folk Arts “Mestersegek Unnepe” in Budapest, Hungary, and museums in Italy and abroad. We especially mention their presence in the collection of the Royal Academy of Liege (Belgium) and in the Melbourne museum (Australia).

They are present in several private collections. This selection was produced in 2018.

Cam Lecce’s masks were also commissioned for various theatrical productions and she has used them in various performances. In the theatre context, she also developed a workshop on the construction of the mask and the workshop of theatrical and artistic pedagogy “The Body and the Mask”.

Capitano

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Capitano

12

Pulcinella

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Pantalone

Zanni

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Bauta

Medico in tempo di peste

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cosmogony: moon cycle

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cosmogony: sun - moon

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May Haddad

The Happy Girl is Torn Apart, paper collage from thecollection “Un Falso Memoir�

58 x 76 cm , 2015

Artworks by May Haddad - Jörg Christoph Grünert May Haddad’s works, watercolours, collages and the Zenobia mask punctuate her sensitivity and passion for human events that the author lives and witnesses in the streaming of life around the world. These works are inspired by the creative processes she experienced during her art residence at the atelier of Cam Lecce and Jörg Christoph Grünert in Spoltore, Italy, in 2015.

Even if our author does not want to be called an artist, her work is a reflection and a profound experience with the various subjects that she comes across and that she gives back with her own eloquence. Like in a long journey, for her it isn’t a metaphor, she presents us keen and lived observations on things and human events in a highly poetic and light form and without veiled rhetoric.

May Haddad testifies to the existence and makes us participants of it in-between the lines with images that are printed in the emotions like a living experience.

The works include: The Tulip, a night diary in watercolours and organic pigments. In this night diary, the artist celebrates the beauty of blooming tulip.

The Happy Girl is Torn Apart, paper collage from the collection “Un Falso Memoir”. In this work, the happy girl who is torn apart becomes a layer in Arabic, English and Italian newspapers.

The Birds, Dying, 4 night diaries from a collection, watercolours and organic pigments. A tribute to the Arab Spring.

The Rape of a Yazidi woman, a night diary in watercolours. A tribute to all women who have been sex slaves.

Zenobia, a mask made with the ancient technique of papier-mâché in layers and precious metallic pigments. The mask was made under Cam Lecce’s guidance. We called upon Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra, to come back and save the archaeological sites that ISIS were demolishing.

People of the Aegean sea, a watercolour drawn with the Aegean sea, the wind and watercolour, from the collection People of the Aegean sea. This watercolour is inspired by that of Jorg’s when he painted his works with water from the sea and impressions of the wind. To the artist, the process helped her come at peace with the Aegean Sea where she realized that it has saved hundreds of thousands of refugees, despite tens of thousands have drowned.

People in volcanic stones, two night diaries from a collection that the artist created while visiting Santorini, Greece. The faces and bodies of people who have been burnt during volcanic eruptions are highlighted in these works.

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The Happy Girl is Torn Apart, paper collage from thecollection “Un Falso Memoir�

61 x 76 cm - 56 x 76 cm, 2015

Birds, Dying - A tribute to the Arab Spring, Watercolors and organic pigment, (1) 21 x 30 cm - (4) (5) 10 x 15 cm, 2015

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Birds, Dying - A tribute to the Arab Spring, Watercolors and organic pigment, (2) 21 x 30 cm - (5) (6) 10 x 15 cm, 2015

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People and Faces in Volcanic Stones I - II Watercolors and organic pigment, 21 x 30 cm - 2015

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- People of the Aegean sea - The Tulip Watercolors and organic pigment, 21 x 30 cm - 2015

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The Rape of a Yazidi Woman Watercolors, 40 x 30 cm - 2015

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Zenobia is reborn. Palmyra remains the star of the eastern world.

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Jörg Christoph Grünert

Artworks by Jörg Christoph Grünert Writing about one’s own creative processes has specific reasons for me, but interpreting my own works can narrow the view of them from a specific aesthetic discussion. That’s why I refer here especially to texts about my art 1.

The exhibited works by Jörg Christoph Grünert are part of his complex work, which the author has been developing since 1989. This work covers all areas of fine arts, but also led him into the world of theater and theater and art pedagogy. It is therefore necessary to embed his works in a comprehensive aesthetic, (art) historical and phenomenological context, even if this is not possible in an exhaustive way with this short text.

We can interpret the works of the author on the basis of the form of “human conditions”, epistemological background of secular northern European culture, and their existential character, which also underline the expressionist origin of the author. Statements by the author such as “people do not love freedom” or “the evolutionary necessity of ecology of mind” correspond to his inalienable horizon of consciousness. His work is subdivided and fragmented into multi-layered forms and contents and participates in the dialectics and aesthetics of contemporary art. His work can be summarized as a critique of the present, which is at the same time a (counter-) image of what appears in the train of the times, and which also contains the abolition of tragedy in the poetic justice of art 2.

For the “in-sight-out” exhibition, the author shows three different threads of his artistic research opening a view on different layers in between the context of art and life and art and nature.

The works Zeitengen I-IV (Lebanese version) are an explicit expression of this background. These works appear as a rebus of great visual impact. This rebus evolves over the series of four works, four “screens”. The composition is a Collage of random newspaper clippings, four mathematical formulas (theory of entropy, chaos and strings and probability calculus), the word redundancy, the Phoenician alphabet, paintings, figures and the scheme of the golden section in gouache. The German title Zeitengen plays with the word Zeitungen (newspapers), the canvas of the work, and means narrowness of the times, a black visual allusion of deep fractures, faults and contradictions in our depleted post-industrial world and nature. For the exhibition in-sightout, beside Zeitengen, four little paintings are exhibited which belong to the To facilitate an approximation of the understanding of the exhibited works, we refer to essays by the art critics Rolando Alfonso and Antonio Picariello and the philosopher Ezio Sciarra, which are interpreted in the anthology Ways of Exile by the author. (Jörg Christoph Grünert, Ways of Exile, Ed. Deposito Dei Segni, Pescara 2008, issuu.com/jorg-christoph-grunert/docs/dddd) 2 See Herbert Marcuse, Versuch über die Befreiung (An Essay on Liberation), Suhrkamp, 1969 1

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hommage à la liberté environment that directly represents the artist’s atelier, that is, his personal cultural world and his subjectivity. These paintings remind in an elementary way 3 faces of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings and one face of a patient of a Yugoslavian psychiatric clinic during 1990’s civil war. The contrast between them and Zeitengen is like an enigma which opens a reflection about our position in the context of humanity and nature.

The works Topos II-V are part of the group of works which the author calls “meditating in matter”. The artist explores the intimate properties of materials he works on. The exercise of tactile and visual sensitivity on interior properties, which are unexplored and pleasant in the intimacy of matter, and on the other hand, the symbolic value of receiving places in which it is possible to cultivate the recovery of silence, of meditation, against surface and purposeless noise of present accelerated, convulse, and alienating time. It seems that we’re put in the presence of living organicity in its basic elements, in the place of connection between organic and inorganic, between original creation and construction of the first organization. Everything moves in a great aesthetic-coloristic composition, capacity of living creative richness, when it is still uncorrupted and non-violated.

The Night Diaries watercolour paintings are visual results that ensure a symbolic importance and validity at the level of a reformulation of the Gestalt theory 1. In the context of the confirmed fall of postmodernism for a return to new realism, the task undertaken by the author with his watercolours codifies a different direction in response to a direct reference from German theory-practice tradition, the germinal intuitions of Goethe’s colour and Rudolf Steiner’s theosophical theories, as well as the search for a lyrical and geometrical abstraction of Avant-garde Bauhaus artists like Johannes Itten, Vasilij Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Jörg Grünert sounds again this research on the mystical origin and psychological function of colours within their supposed essence and spirituality. Further of previously enucleated properties of colours he accentuates their terrestrial nature in harmony with the spiritual nature, without neglecting the focus on the perception of colours and the sight mechanisms, which is probably the forerunner of a new Gestalt theory in the sense of ecology of mind.

See the essay of Rolando Alfonso in by Cam Lecce and Jörg Christoph Grünert, Theatre as Social Body and Horizon of Human Rights, report of a study morning - Night Diaries, Lebanese Watercolours 2004 - 2011 by Jörg Christoph Grünert, Ed. Tracce, Pescara, 2011 (issuu.com/jorg-christoph-grunert/docs/ social_theatre) 1

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Zeitengen I - IV (Lebanese version) Newspaper, Gouache, 70 x 100 cm - 2018

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4 pieces from the environment hommage a la libertĂŠ Acrilic color, plaster on canvas, 24 x 30 cm - 2018

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Topos IV - V Pure color pigments, sand, felt, stone, copper, sticking plaster 70 x 100 cm - 2018

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Topos II Pure color pigments, sand, felt, stone, copper, sticking plaster 70 x 100 cm - 2018

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Topos III Pure color pigments, sand, felt, stone, copper, sticking plaster 70 x 100 cm - 2018

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Night Diaries Gran Sasso - august 2018 I - III - IV Watercolor, 61 x 91 cm

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Night Diaries Gran Sasso - august 2018 II Watercolor, 61 x 91 cm

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Night Diaries Watercolor, 30 x 40 cm Lebanon - 21-8-2010 - 29-8-2018 - 7-8-2010

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Night Diaries Lebanon - 25-8-2018 Watercolor, 30 x 40 cm

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Night Diaries Watercolor, 30 x 40 cm Lebanon - 26-8-2018 - 6-8-2010

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Night Diaries Watercolor, 30 x 40 cm Lebanon - 28-8-2018 - 13-8-2004 - 31-8-2018

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Night Diaries Lebanon - 5-8-2010 Watercolor, 30 x 40 cm

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Jörg Christoph Grünert Sculptor, performer, dramatist, and trainer in theatre and art pedagogy, professor of the course “Tecniche Relazionali” for the degree course “Servizio Sociale” at the University “G. D’Annunzio” Pescara-Chieti, Italy.

Born in Cologne (Germany) lives in the city of Spoltore, Abruzzo region, Italy. Studied philosophy, history and sociology in Konstanz (Germany).

Graduated in Sculpture at Fine Arts School of

L’Aquila (Italy).

Exhibitions in Italy and other countries.

Author/dramatist/scenographer/performer of the theatre- and environment productions of the Association Deposito Dei Segni.

As theatre and art pedagogy teaching trainer, together with actress Cam Lecce, performs workshops and professionalising courses in Italy and other countries, involved in intercultural exchange projects.

Carmela, called Cam, Lecce Theatre actress, trainer, and theatre and art pedagogy teacher, mask-maker and stilt-walker.

From 1983 she is an actress in live performances for various theatre companies.

Author/dramatist/performer of the theatre-and environment productions of the Association Deposito Dei Segni.As theatre and art pedagogy teaching trainer, together with artist Jörg Christoph Grünert since 1995, performs workshops and professionalising courses in Italy and other countries, involved in intercultural exchange projects.

She has also a background of artist in making theatre mask and applied arts.

Her masks are part of the collection of the Royal Academy of Liege (Belgium) and the Melbourne Museum (Australia).

She founded together with the artist Jörg Christoph Grünert the Association Deposito Dei Segni.

Publications and documentations of Jörg C. Grünert and Cam Lecce are visitable on the websites: issuu.com/jorg-christoph-grunert/ - issuu.com/cam-maschere www.depositodeisegni.org - www.youtube.com/user/depositodeisegni 46

May Haddad Independent writer, visual artist, public health expert, social activist, medical doctor, educator, curator and blogger.

May has activated and founded Active Learning, Creative Arts and Community Health/Health Promotion events/ projects/ programs within dozens of NGOs/CBOs working in the MENA, Europe, Canada and Arctic Quebec.

Throughout her public health career, she has led several participatory evaluations and developed dozens of resource educational materials and publications that have been printed in tens of thousands copies.

Her multi-media art works have been displayed in Canada and Lebanon.

Publications and documentations of May Haddad are visitable on the websites: www.slideshare.net/MayHaddad1/may-haddad-mdmph-cv-july-2018 mayhaddad.wordpress.com/ issuu.com/mayhaddad4/docs

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in-sight-out artworks by Cam Lecce May Haddad Jörg Christoph Grünert Jörg Christoph Grünert May Haddad Cam Lecce artworks by

in-sight-out