SOUHEIL SLEIMAN: PRINCES KEPT THE VIEW

Campbel Works is delighted to present:

(all along the watchtower) PRINCES KEPT THE VIEW, an exhibition of sculptural works, by Lebanese artist Souheil Sleiman. The works, shown here for the first time, represent an overview of Sleiman’s ongoing fascination with the instruments of state power and surveillance.

Both playful and menacing, these interactive sculptures intend to subvert the array of instruments and equipment that adorn the many “watchtowers” that have mushroomed and invaded our public spaces. Quietly keeping watch – a peculiar kind of witnessing …frail new trees and a skyline of antennae*- recording and relaying; they coerce. They instil paranoia and distrust.

‘Reporting anything unusual won’t hurt you’ ‘If you suspect it report it’ (TfL)

Mirrors inhabit painted boxes made from particle board or attached, mounted on wired wooden sticks; they defy the given journey of the eye from left to right, up, behind, beyond. What do you watch? Where do you look? Why there? Souheil Sleiman’s fabrications subvert the sophistication of high tech. manufacture. Their presence is light hearted and they are inclined to ridicule the fear and dread that surveillance instruments of power are intended to provoke. With titles such as Panopticon [2009-2010], Praying Mantis [2009-2010] and Under and Over [2009-2010], they are made to be inhabited, worn, manipulated. They deflect our forward looking gaze, guide us to watch our backs and induce us to police ourselves and hold ourselves in check.

Souheil Sleiman has exhibited both internationally, with several recent exhibitions in Beirut, and in the UK at the Liverpool Biennial, The Bluecoat Gallery and Galway Arts Centre. Souheil currently lives and works in London and is the co-founder of Amhurst Republic “where no one is illegal” http://amhurstrepublic.wordpress.com

A sound work by Anis Sleiman will accompany the exhibition.

* From the Poem In Camera by John Welch