In his first solo UK show, “ I, the Syrian ”, Tammam Azzam translates war’s absurdities into a visual language that uses lightness to convey their gravity. Its first absurdity– the transformation of home’s familiar shapes into an unrecognizable moonscape of shelling– becomes doubly surreal seen from afar , juxtaposed against the orderly, ordinary life humming along beyond its borders. Azzam’s art one-ups life , bringing these paradoxes into play through unlikely yet telling combinations.
“ Freedom Graffiti ”, which went viral in early 2013, superimposed a Klimt painting of two lovers onto a mortar-pocked Damascus wall. His “ Bon Voyage ” series takes up another battle-scarred building and ties it to a festive bunch of balloons. Thus suspended, and miniaturized by the balloons, it floats over various peaceful landscapes as a tiny, incongruous exile.
Hovering over London and Geneva, it is a vagrant envoy from a Syria still in limbo. “I, the Syrian” runs through January 30 in London and Beirut.
