Abstract architecture

of superstructures

BEIRUT: Many people are fascinated by the U.S., whether it
is by New Yorks skyscrapers, the Bronx and Brooklyn
Heights, or San Franciscos Golden Gate Bridge and Las
Vegas landscapes.
Lebanese photographer Elie Khoury took a new approach to
these cities while visiting the U.S., as evidenced by his latest
exhibition, Still Image Creativity of Indefinite
Superstructures, now up at Gemmayzehs ArtLab gallery.
Thirty-five photographs taken as Khoury toured the three cities
reveal the artists focus on architecture and show something of
the immense creativity that can be found in building designs,
both modern and contemporary.
Khourys New York can be separated into two parts: the
professional sector, full of skyscrapers designed to house
luxurious offices, and a more personal city that shines through
in the broad range of residential buildings.
Some viewers may think anyone can take photographs of
buildings. Theyre not wrong there. However, Khoury
differentiates himself from any amateur artist by his creative
use of perspective, color and angle. The buildings are not
objects relegated to the background of daily life, but have been
transformed into the subjects, taking on lives of their own
when glimpsed through Khourys lenses.
Graffiti an art form often dismissed as vandalism forms an
integral part of Khourys cityscapes, and plays a major role in
bringing character to the buildings faades.
One of Khourys works, an eye-catching base of immaculate
white punctuated by strokes of electric blue paint, resembles
an abstract painting at first glance. The viewer is reminded of
Khourys focus on architecture only by the little window just
visible in the upper right-hand corner.
Another of his photographs focuses on two parts of the same
building. Shot from the bottom up, the curvy architecture of
the edifice, captured from Khourys cunning perspective,
creates the impression that the building is protruding from the
flat surface of the photograph.
The images shot in Las Vegas are much more colorful than the
others in the exhibition. Bright pinks and blues enliven the
paper, as though a painter had incorporated a touch of drama
into the landscape. Closer inspection reveals that these shades
are merely the reflection of the sunlight on the buildings glass
faades, astutely emphasized through Khourys lens.
The bustling neighborhood full of cosmopolitan locals and
tourists is not Khourys focus, as it usually is when someone
visits Americas party town. Here too, buildings are the
photographers muses.
Khourys photographs are the fruits of an end-of-year project
that he completed when studying photography at USEK.
Khourys refreshing visions invite his viewers to reflect on the
architectural structures that surround us all without
acknowledgment whether in the U.S. or elsewhere in the
world.
Although traditional houses and buildings around the world
are being torn down to make way for contemporary edifices,
this process should not always be seen as a catastrophe,
Khourys photographs seem to say, but as means welcoming
and immersing ourselves in the positive aspects of
modernization.
The same can be said of his photographs of San Francisco.
Buildings are given new meaning and become part of an
architectural Renaissance when glimpsed through Khourys
eyes.
Beauty can be seen in globalization. It can be deciphered in
skyscrapers. This is what Khoury is trying to show us in the
humorously named Still Image Creativity of Indefinite
Superstructures.
Elie Khourys Still Image Creativity of Indefinite
Superstructures is on show at Gemmayzehs ArtLab gallery
until July 26. For more information, please visit www.art-
lab.me



Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Arts-and-
Ent/Culture/2014/Jul-21/264511-abstract-architecture-of-
superstructures.ashx#ixzz383cWsiy2
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News ::
http://www.dailystar.com.lb)