JARRAR – POLARIS
Khaled Jarrar new exhibition at Galerie Polaris Gently I Pressed The Trigger , curated by Inês VALLE * : Artists with a different background than in arts always interest me. Khaled JARRAR is one of them. Growing up with weapons around him and later holding one of those weapons for making a living, his attachment to those dangerous (for some, life saving) devices is damn realistic. Like how passionate he was about his “Palestinian passport stamping” project (he did not want to end it until palestine was a free country), Khaled Jarrar will hardly let go of his weapon. Only, his weapon has just changed. It is no longer a weapon of killing but a weapon of understanding: art. With every new work, Khaled Jarrar is understanding himself and his country. He also helps us understand his country and him, for there is no better way to understand a conflict ridden country than understanding the individuals who live through it.
For his latest work Khaled Jarrar is literally using the weapon, and literally to shoot. He shoots at bottles full of paint which then burst around to the surface of empty canvases placed alongside, making eerie paintings. If someone else has done the same ‘action painting’ we would not have been given much, other than an appropriation of the already rich art history in terms of such actions. But when an ex-soldier does it, it becomes more than an art work. His action is a personal trauma eased, a self reflection on a past that forcibly shaped him like many of his compatriots.
Like earlier actions which infiltrated his personal uniform, his weapon, or blood stained notebook into his work, this one is not a mere strategy in art making; not something that would awe audiences. For Khaled Jarrar, these works of art are like the bread on his table. Take them away from him, he will starve, emotionally