Jayce Salloum

Jayce Salloum (born 1958) is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist.

Early life A grandson of Syrian immigrants from what is now Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, he was born and raised in Kelowna and since 1997 has been based in Vancouver. He earned a BFA degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1980, followed by a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1988. Salloum has lived and worked in Beirut, New York, San Francisco, Toronto and elsewhere.

Career A multidisciplinary artist, since 1978 Salloum has produced work in installation, photography, video, performance and text, as well as curating and coordinating a vast array of cultural projects.

His work is included in over one hundred permanent collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, the Asia Art Archive, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, the Museum of the Americas, Managua, Nicaragua, Museum of Modern Art, New York, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Saradar Collection, Beirut, Lebanon, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia. In addition to these museums and galleries, Salloum's work has been collected by numerous universities, including the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, Birzeit University, Ramallah, Palestine, Carleton University, Ottawa, Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown, Columbia University, New York, Concordia University, Montréal, Duke University, N. Carolina, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, University of California, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Yale Film Archive, New Haven, Connecticut. Under the guidance of Hubert Hohn (who worked with Ansel Adams and assisted Minor White), Salloum learning the technical, formal intricacies of making a photograph. These images are varied and present an archive of the city when installed and exhibited by Salloum. The exhibition was set to open in October of that year, but was cancelled in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks a month prior. Central to the museum's decision to cancel the exhibition was Salloum's video installation, untitled part 1: everything and nothing, in which Salloum interviews Soha Bechara. Bechara had shot and attempted to assassinate South Lebanon Army commander Antoine Lahad. She was thereafter detained by the South Lebanon Army for nearly ten years at its Khiam prison in Southern Lebanon, which was at the time within a security belt occupied by Israel. In the video, Bechara expresses the need to resist the Israeli occupation, which was seen as controversial by the directors of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The postponement was criticized by some civil liberties organizations and arts communities as a form of inappropriate cultural censorship. At the same time, in support of the museum's decision to postpone or perhaps censor the video installation, some advocacy groups questioned whether a state-funded museum should support a work that promoted hatred and hostility, political propaganda, and one-sided promotion of hostility and divisiveness. After a discussion ensued in the House of Commons, in which Prime Minister Jean Chrétien voiced his support for the exhibition, the show opened as scheduled. The day prior to the screening, the city of Kelowna tried to censor the works and cancelled the scheduled premiere screening. Salloum was able to convince Kelowna's Alternator Gallery to screen the film that same night, and in the ensuing weeks after much press coverage and public debate the city decommissioned the complete compilation project and denied the final funding due to the Alternator gallery. In 2016 he was a nominee for the Scotiabank Photography Award.

A living archive Jayce Salloum, location/dis-location(s): beyond the pale (2017). Installation view. McCord Museum, Montreal. From 1982 onward, Salloum accumulated vast amounts of research materials for what would become the installation Kan Ya Ma Kan/There was and there was not (1995). For Salloum, this material constituted a living archive that "called into question notions of history and research methodology, their role in the effacement of histories, and the mediated process inherent in the representation and (mis)understanding of another culture…" Archival interventions are a mode of artistic production in Salloum's native Lebanon that became common place after the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War, and much of the work of Salloum's colleagues—in particular, Walid Raad, Akram Zaatari, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, and Lamia Joreige—is in some manner oriented towards the archive. The archives employed in Salloum's untitled series, for example, are not static but are instead dynamic. The traces that one leaves behind in place—the traces of the self that form what Salloum refers to as the histories of the self—are videotaped by Salloum in an effort to bring the personal space into "the context of the intrinsic social and political site." Salloum enacts the role of a "curator-collector" in his "untitled" series, in which he is not only active in making the photograph, but in grouping in with others as well. Images take on another meaning when amassed together, as an archive of the city and its margins. This representational strategy presents not simply a static archive of the city, but an ever changing, dynamic, living archive that the viewer is invited to walk through, or past. Jayce Salloum, لِ که سوز ندارد, دلِ نیس, the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart (fragments) (2008–14). Installation view, National Gallery of Canada, 2014.

In 1992, two years after the end of the Lebanese Civil War, Jayce Salloum visited Lebanon with his then assistant, artist Walid Raad. Over the year, Salloum recorded over 200 hours of videotape, as well as several thousand photographs. He also accrued a half ton of documents and found film. This archive would form the basis of two films, This is Not Beirut (1994) and Up to the South (Talaeen a Junuub) (1993), as well as the series of photos titled (sites+) demarcations (1992–94). For example, the untitled video series confronts issues of representation by drawing one's eyes to the margins, asking us to engage with—and look at—what lay on the periphery.

Video/film "..In the absence of heroes.." Part IV: Warfare/A case for context - Introduction, 60:00, VHS to 3⁄4" 1984 "..In the absence of heroes.." Part IV: Warfare/A case for context, 43:00, VHS to 3⁄4" 1984 "The Ascent of Man.." 24:00, Part I: Silent Running, 4:42; Part I: Appendix, 4:40; Part II: Conditions of Mercy, 6:15; Part III: Acts of Consumption, 8:00, VHS to 3⁄4", 1985-1987 Once you’ve shot the gun you can't stop the bullet, 8:00, 8mm videotape and Super-8 film, 1988 Muqaddimah Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of an Argument)/Speaking for oneself... Speaking for others, 41:41, 8mm & VHS, English, Arabic, French, and Hebrew (co-directed by Elia Suleiman), 1990 (1988) (Talaeen a Junuub)/Up to the South, 60:00, Hi-8 & Reg-8, BetacamSP final, Arabic, English and French (co-directed by Walid Raad), 1993 (1992) (This is Not Beirut) کان ها پا کان Kan Ya Ma Kan//There was and there was not, 49:00, Hi-8, VHS & 35mm orig., BetacamSP final, Arabic and English, Lebanon/USA/Canada, 1994 (1992) untitled part 1: everything and nothing, 40:40, DVM, Arabic and French with English subtitles, France/Canada (with Soha Bechara), 2001 (1999) untitled part 2: beauty and the east, 50:15, DVM. Former Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia & Montenegro, Slovenia), Austria, USA, Canada, 2003 (1999) untitled part 3a: occupied territories, 23:00, DVM, Arabic with English subtitles, Lebanon/Canada, untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends.., 11:12, Arabic with English subtitles, Lebanon/Canada, (2000, 1992, 1982, 2002) untitled part 4: terra (in)cognita, 37:30, DVM, N’Syilx’cen & English, Syilx (Okanagan), Canada, 2005 untitled part 5: all is not lost but some things may have been misplaced along the way (or) of endings and beginnings and some points in-between, 113:00, DVM, Syilx (Okanagan) Territory, Canada untitled part 6: upon the resonance/weight of histories, 146:45, HD, Aotearoa/New Zealand (with Te Miringa Hohaia), 2010 (2009) untitled part 7.1: scenes/settings, 5:11, from: the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart (fragments), HD, 2010 (2008) untitled part 7.2: assembly, 14:13, from: the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart (fragments), Deri/Farsi & Hazaragi subtitled in English, HD, 2010 (2008) untitled part 7.3: shahnameh/band-e-amir, 30:30, from: the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart (fragments), Deri/Farsi & Hazaragi subtitled in English, HD, 2010 (2008) untitled part 7.4: cave interiors, 4:42, from: the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart (fragments), HD, 2010 (2008) untitled part 7.5: statue fragments, 6:16, from: the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart (fragments), HD, 2010 (2008) untitled part 8: esquina caliente, 11:55, Spanish with English subtitles, DVM, 2016 (2003) untitled part 9: this time, 6:13, Deri/Farsi & Hazaragi with English subtitles, Afghanistan/Canada, HD, 2020 (2008)

Installation, sculpture and photography projects

nite/day photographs: San Francisco, Death Valley & area, silver gelatin photographs selenium toned, 1977–78 thru the stillness that flies behind me.., 50 selenium toned silver gelatin prints, (1978-1979) SX-70 Polaroid & Type 58 & 59, Polacolor photographs, (1981-1982) Precarious Acquiescence, (1981-1983) "..The Ascent of Man.." (Acts of Consumption), dimensions variable, (1985-1988) recent maps & occurrent stages/progenous routes, from a group of 30 silver gelatin prints, (1980-1985) "... In the absence of heroes..." Part I: progenous routes, from a group of 55 chromogenic photographs, (1980-1983) "...In the absence of heroes..." Part III: Paradigmatic Shifts, 30" x 40" photographs, (1984) "...In the absence of heroes..." Part IV: Relentless Verity (Warfare/A case for context), ink & photographs, mixed media maquettes; prints courtesy, Public Archive Canada, (1984) Instant Design Predetermined Values, from A case for context. 8" x 10" Polaroid photographs, (1982) precarious acquiescence, 8.5" x 11" collage on letter paper pages, series, (1982) re-membering you (mute pictures), 8" x 10" painted/inked black and white photo reproductions and sound loop installation. Dimensions variable, (1987-1988) re-engagements, 16 x 20" chromogenic photographs from videotape with text superimposed, (1988) Stupid pleasures..., 20" x 24" (50.8 x 61 cm), Polaroid photographs with text, (1988-1989) untitled photographs: NYC (various titles: TO THE TRADE, 22 oz Thunderbolt, HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE, Neutral/Brakes/Steering, Ektacolour chromogenic photographs. Dimensions variable, (1988-2003) کان ها پا کان Kan ya ma Kan (There was and there was not), documents, reproductions, photographs, film, video, objects, acrylic, glass, dimensions variable, (1995-2005) (sites +) demarcations.., 75 – 16" x 20" chromogenic photographs with texts, (1992) map of the world, sculpture installation, documents, photographs, organic matter, drawings, objects, ink, tentest board. 98 x 144 inches (243.8 x 365.8 cm), (1999-2009) everything and nothing and other works from the ongoing project ‘untitled’, multi- channeled video installation, size variable, (2001-2009) untitled photographs: subjective affinities. Giclée photographs. Dimensions variable, (2003-) untitled photographs: location/dis-location(s), digital photographs. Dimensions variable, (2004-2013) the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart, digital inkjet photographs, video loops, paintings, drawings, objects, documents, (with Khadim Ali), (2008-2012) all is not lost but some things may have been misplaced along the way (or) of endings and beginnings and some points in-between, and other works from the ongoing videotape, untitled, 1999-ongoing, multi-channeled video installation, size variable, (2010) untitled photographs: location/dis-location(s): contingent promises, (2012-2013) Kan ya ma Kan (There was and there was not) (fragments), documents, reproductions, photographs, film, video, objects, acrylic, dimensions variable, (2013-2015) untitled photographs: location/dis-location(s): gleaning spaces, (2014) A history of photography, MKG127 Gallery, Toronto, (2016) untitled photographs: location/dis-location(s): beyond the pale, (2017) untitled photographs: location/dis-location(s): verisimilitude(s) and permutations, (2019) the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart (fragments), digital inkjet photographs, video loops, drawings, objects, documents, (2014-2015) torn paper sculptures: paper and photopaper, (2017-2020)

Public art

man’oeuvre: 9 - 30" x 40" chromogenic photographs, original mirrored tiles, Cameron Public House, Toronto, (1985) May 17, 1998, outdoor forest-ruin photo and text installation at former Cornish Estate, Cold Spring, New York, (1988) Territory, Artspeak & Presentation House, 30 images displayed in City of Vancouver transit shelter back-lit signage spaces, curated by Melanie O'Brian & Helga Pakasaar, Vancouver, (1988) Footprints Community Art Project, sidewalk community mosaics, produced & designed "Heart of the City" mosaic at Main & Hastings St. and "memorial mosaic" at Oppenheimer Park, Downtown Eastside, desmedia collective, Vancouver, (2001) (un)classified materials: a public archives; present histories/history of the present, Vancouver Art Gallery (commission), (2005) Territory, Artspeak & Presentation House, 30 images displayed in City of Vancouver transit shelters, Vancouver, (2006) Coastal, 30 large scale location/dis-location(s) photographs in transit shelters, producer: City of Vancouver Public Art Commission, (2016) Cultural Perspectives, Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery, Seattle, (2016) ever close, Platforms 2020: Public Works: series of 4 image on 18 digital billboards, City of Vancouver public art commission beyond now, The Pandemic is a Portal, curated by cheyanne turions, SFU Galleries, Vancouver; BIPOC practices during Covid19, Ethnocultural Art Histories Research, Concordia University, Montréal; & Strength In Numbers, MKG127 Gallery, Toronto (online), (2020)

Performance

'...In the absence of heroes...’: Part IV: Relentless Verity (Warfare/A case for context), Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, (1984-1985) light-cone, San Diego & San Francisco, (1988) concretizing the ephemeral/ephemeralizing the concrete: throwing out ‘identity’ with the bathwater (and the tub) while carrying on in the bath, Vancouver & Bristol, England, (2002-2003) representing the unrepresentable: there is no Arab art, Zenith Foundation, Barbican Museum, London, England, (2004) autopsy of the oblique in a dissection of intent: images of death in a limited genealogy, University of South Florida, Tampa, (2004) sans titre/untitled, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, (2004) human rights and self determination, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (2004) genealogy of the present: untitled, Alternator Gallery, Kelowa, (2005) interrupting orientalism: denying the trajectory, Centre A, SFU Theatre, Vancouver, (2008) representing the unrepresentable: subjective affinities I: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand, (2008) representing the unrepresentable: subjective affinities III: We Declare/Flying University, Gallery Gachet, Vancouver, (2008) Framing Culture/Engaging Community, Production & Process Across the Great Divide or Subjective Affinities & where do you choose to place yourselves or be placed.., Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, (2010) subjective affinities: concretizing the ephemeral - a social convergence, Shift Symposium, Strandline Curatorial Collective, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, (2011) tangible cartographiers: surviving the colonial/welcome to my house, (with Manuel Pina), Performing Utopias Conference, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, (2014) secret agents.. working in/out of untitled photographs: location/dis-location(s): gleaning spaces, Carleton University, Ottawa, (2015)