Ziad Antar

His videos undeniably testify to a world in conflict, but using a rather playful and light tone, Ziad Antar’s work immediately seduces. Focusing on a precise idea, Ziad Antar’s videos express life problems (sometimes linked to war) with a short shot and with simple means. It is with disconcerting ease and efficiency that Ziad Antar confronts the viewer with burning questions, without expressing any position and without empathy. 
Music plays an important role in his work, such as in Tamborro, Wa, Tokyo Tonight or La Marche Turque where the eponymous partition of Mozart is being played on a cordless piano and where only the sound of the fingers striking the keys resonates, evoking the sound of a military march. Music and/or repeated sounds punctuate all of Ziad Antar’s videos.

Ziad Antar was born in 1978 in Saïda, Lebanon. He graduated from the American University of Beirut with a degree in Agricultural Engineering in 2001. Soon after, Antar started working with video and photography. He completed a one-year residency at the Palais de Tokyio in Paris in 2003 and a one-year residency for the post-diploma of the École des Beaux-Art of Paris. He directed several documentaries for the Arabic news channel al-Arabiya, including L’Islam et la Laïcité (2004), Lebanon and its Partners (2005), The Role of Europe (2007). Ziad Antar currently lives and works between Saida, Lebanon and Paris, France.

Ziad Antar’s work has been exhibited in various museums such as Tate Modern in London, The Centre Georges Pompidou and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, at the New Museum in New York. He has also taken part in the Sharjah Biennale, UAE, as well as in the Taipei Biennale, Taïwan in 2008.