Ismaïl Bahri
∗1978, Tunisia
Ismaïl Bahri’s works have a meditative quality. The French-Tunisian artistadopts video, drawing, sculpture and sound as means of staging simple gestures,such as slowing the fall of water drops by making them run along an invisiblethread or looking through a glass of ink at the reflected image of a moving city,filming a transparent drop of water on a wrist, revealing the rhythm of theheartbeat, or even placing a sheet of paper moved by the wind in front of the lens.These are minimal experiments, in which the artist places himself and the viewerin the condition of observers, to whom a presence, a detail or an unexpectedsecret may be revealed before their very eyes. In the video on view at Pontives,Digital(2022), a POV shot lets the viewer identify with a man caught in a desertsandstorm. His gaze moves quickly, trying to protect himself from the incessanthowling wind, until he comes across a small dune and leaves a handprint in thesand, which is then slowly erased by the waves of sand grains driven by the stormyair. A metaphor for time, in which the human and the geological overlap for a fewbrief moments.
Has taken part in:
