“Watchtowers (Israeli military watchtowers in West Bank, Palestine),” 2008, series of 26 B&W photographs, digital prints, 40 x 50 cm, 2008
Artist Bio:
Born in Gaza in 1966, Taysir Batniji studied art at Al-Najah University in Nablus, in Palestine. In 1994, he was awarded a fellowship to study at the School of Fine Arts in Bourges. Since then, he has been dividing his time between France and Palestine. During this period spent between two countries and two cultures, Batniji has developed a multi-media practice, focusing on photographic and video images.
Following his first solo show in Paris in 2002, that showed works produced in Gaza, he multiplied his participations in a number of exhibitions, biennales and residencies in Europe and across the world, amongst which the Rencontres d’Arles and C’est pas du Cinema ! in Fresnoy in 2002, Dreams and Conflicts, Contemporary Arab Representations at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, Heterotopias at the Thessalonique Biennale and the Sharjah Biennale in 2007, Palestine c/o Venice at the Venice Biennale in 2009, The Future of a Promise at the Venice Biennale in 2011, Now Babylon at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Recreational Purpose at the National Museum of Bahrain and Everyday Rituals at the Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah in 2014.
Taysir was awarded the Abraaj Group Art Prize in 2012. His works can be found in the collections of many prestigious institutions of which the Centre Pompidou and the FNAC in France, the V&A and The Imperial War Museum in London, the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia and Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi.
