Which images are made manifest across an artist’s practice and which are the ones that disappear? How do objects—whether seen or unseen—and the knowledge they possess traverse across place and time to avow their resistance? These are amongst the questions asked by artist Nour Bishouty in her artist’s book 1—130, a project that draws upon her ongoing research into the works of her father, Ghassan Bishouty (b. 1941 Palestine – d. 2004, Jordan). In 1—130, she borrows from methods of indexing and object classification to act as figurative codes for identification and cross-reference within the contexts of value and legacy. All the while employing paratactic strategies of text and image to understand the life and work of an artist faced with the discontinuity of deracination.

1—130 constitutes reflexive encounters with a series of 130 selected paintings and sculptures made circa 1965-2004 in Lebanon and Jordan, and concludes with an afterword by editor and curator Jacob Korczynski.

Swiss Binding

Nour Bishouty's profile page

Jacob Korczynski's profile page

AN INDEX OF THE UNSEEN

Nour Bishouty’s book uses the archive as a sort of rubric for identifying and classifying objects related to her late father’s art. As an artist herself, Bishouty’s project is both an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of her father’s work – to answer questions she can no longer ask him – and an exploration into why some objects and materials become more visible than others. The book lays out these objects non-hierarchically: video stills from an exhibition opening are given the same importance as a completed artwork or a one-word note. Bishouty takes something as personal and interior as the relationship of a daughter to a father, and uses it as a starting point to explore universal questions relevant to every artist’s practice. — Alexis Zavialoff and Maia Asshaq