Ali Cherri. Dreams of a Dreamless Night

Edited by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi with Bianca Stoppani, this publication provides an overview of the artist’s output over the past three years, and teases out new strands for interpretation and formal links between his films, videos, sculptures, drawings, and installations.

Originated on the occasion of Dreamless Night, a comprehensive solo exhibition held first at GAMeC in Bergamo, and now on view at Frac Bretagne in Rennes until May 19, 2024, the book showcases a number of newly commissioned essays that reflect on Cherri’s most recent exhibition projects. This publication is made possible thanks to the support of Galerie Imane Farès.

Starting from the documentation of Dreamless Night, the book also illustrates Humble and quiet and soothing as mud, the exhibition at Swiss Institute in New York in 2023; his participation at Biennale Arte 2022 in Venice; and If you prick us, do we not bleed?, the exhibition staged at the National Gallery in London following his residency at the museum in 2021. Each exhibition is also extensively illustrated by a visual essay conceived by the artist, encompassing not only the installation views but also images from the development and production stages.

Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi, curators of the exhibition Dreamless Night at GAMeC in Bergamo and at Frac Bretagne in Rennes, expand their curatorial contribution to the exhibition with an essay that explores Cherri’s new film The Watchman and the series of sculptures and drawings based on the scenes and characters in the film. The exhibition was the first instantiation of Unison, a biennial initiative by Fondazione In Between Art Film that has the aim to conceive, commission, and produce major video installations for the benefit of international institutions.

A wide-ranging conversation between the artist, Lorenzo Giusti, director of GAMeC, and Étienne Bernard, director of Frac Bretagne, affords a unique opportunity to delve deeper into Cherri’s personal experiences, the complex history and role of museums, and the geographies of violence that inform his work.

Cecilia Alemani explores the presentation of Cherri’s film Of Men and Gods and Mud at The Milk of Dreams, the exhibition she curated for Biennale Arte 2022, where Cherri was awarded the Silver Lion for Promising Young Artist; Stefanie Hessler, director of Swiss Institute in New York, contributes with an essay on the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States; and Priyesh Mistry, associate curator of Modern and Contemporary Projects at the National Gallery in London, investigates the artist’s commission that explored the histories of trauma.

Erika Balsom, reader in Film Studies at King’s College in London, retraces Cherri’s poetics through his films and aesthetic strategies, which look at the survival of people, objects, and the environment despite the ruinous damage wrought by reality.

The book also features a reprint of a text by Stefan Tarnowski, early-career research fellow in AMES and Social Anthropology at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, on The Dam, Cherri’s feature-length film that was presented at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes 2022 as part of the Cannes Film Festival.

The layout of this publication is designed by Lorenzo Mason Studio and is published by Lenz Press.