Ali Cherri How I Am Monument

"This richly fascinating show incorporates ancient artefacts into its primeval sculptures, asking pointed questions about how value is assigned to artworks" - ★★★★★ The Guardian
 

Born in Beirut, a year into the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), Cherri examines violence against bodies, objects and nature in regions of conflict, and reflects on the processes through which historical and cultural narratives are shaped.

How I Am Monument showcases the artist's interests in process and materiality, looking at history and the ancient world through a material lens. The exhibition presents newly commissioned works including Sphinx (2024), a hybrid sculpture created from mud and bronze. Evoking Assyrian and Egyptian statues, a winged human/animal creature sits on its haunches, with exaggerated musculature and a serpent curling around its legs. However, unlike the monumental sculptures of ancient civilisations that exude permanence and strength, its body and plinth are made from mud - a humble and fragile material that Cherri frequently employs in his work - and its front limbs are balanced precariously on two bronze prostheses.

Cherri’s work interrogates the ways in which political violence is witnessed and disseminates into people’s bodies, and how it scars the physical and cultural landscape. The film The Watchman and the installation The Seven Soldiers (both 2023) visualise the impact of military discipline on human bodies in times of conflict, while other related works consider how natural elements, such as vegetation, bear witness to historical trauma.

With Toppled Monuments 1–6 (Kharkiv, Aleppo, Baghdad, Richmond VA, Vienna, Bristol), wooden sculptures represent the empty plinths of statues of deposed leaders. The blank spaces invite us to re-evaluate our past and imagine future possibilities.

The exhibition also bring together additional works including the artist's acclaimed short film The Watchman (2023). Set in Cyprus, The Watchman reflects on the tensions around the military division line that separates the Greek and Turkish communities. It centres on the figure of a soldier who mans a watchtower looking out for 'the enemy'. Weary from his long shift, the soldier inhabits a space between wakefulness and sleep where peculiar things start to happen. In a related sculptural work The Seven Soldiers, a series of oversized heads are caught in a perpetual state of slumber, their haunting expressions resembling the ghostly figures that appear at the end Cherri's film.