After curating Radical Closure for our festival in 2006, video artist Akram Zaatari now returns to Oberhausen with a programme of his own works. Zaatari's videos revolve around capturing complex phenomena, they are sensual and abstract, impressionistic and rigorously structured and it is through these contradictions and inconsistencies that they develop their irresistible power. A co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation, Zaatari is an archivist who always questions the images he presents. Two programmes range from his first unfinished Wassat Bayrout (1992), a document of Beirut after the war, to his tribute to movement in cinema, Video in 5 Movements (2006), based on Super 8 home movies shot by a still photographer (in pre-war Lebanon).

5 + 6 May 2008

Contact: Carsten Spicher