Traces of Love in Dust and Stone: Ali Cherri's works
NASO artist spotlight. Bourse de Commerce, Paris France. Corps et Âmes (February-August 2025)
Ali Cherri, born in 1976 in Beirut and currently based in Paris, is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans film, performance, sculpture, drawing, and installation. His work engages deeply with the entangled histories of political violence, cultural memory, and heritage, with a particular focus on Lebanon and the broader Middle Eastern region. Cherri examines how trauma-both historical and ongoing— manifests across human bodies and natural landscapes, often drawing compelling analogies between geological ruptures and sociopolitical fractures. Through the recontextualization of archaeological artifacts and their complex trajectories across time, his practice critically interrogates institutional narratives, unveiling the colonial legacies embedded within systems of cultural preservation and display.
Across the diverse subjects he engages with, a consistent thread in Ali Cherri's practice is his use of imagination to revisit sites of past and present destruction, as a means of envisioning pathways for social transformation in the present. Within the current exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce, Corps et Âmes (Bodies and Souls), which investigates representations of the body in contemporary art, Cherri's work finds a particularly resonant context.
Love may not be the immediate emotion one associates with Cherri's oeuvre, especially for those familiar with the arc of his artistic journey. Yet, paradoxically, love lingers-subtle but persistent-like the lingering taste of a perfect meal. It remains with us long after the experience ends, etched into our hearts, minds, and souls, much like the quiet resonance that follows after leaving the halls of the Bourse de Commerce.
Ali Cherri's work extends an invitation to discover fragments of ourselves within each sculpture. As viewers, we experience a quiet solidarity, observing dismembered forms through the barrier of glass-both separated from and intimately connected to them. We follow the circular path of the Bourse de Commerce, uncertain of where it may lead, yet confident that it will bring us closer to the unresolved questions that linger within us. There is a certainty in the destination, even if the route remains elusive.
Yet, to arrive there, the journey unfolds as one grounded in love — a profound, unspoken love for those around us, for our communities, and for the countless others we will never meet but remain bound to through our shared humanity. Cherri's work becomes more than a visual experience; it becomes an invocation-an invitation to empathy, to connection, to love.
This exhibit explores the intersection of body and soul, yet there is a subtle dissonance when encountering works that appear fundamentally detached from either.
Ali Cherri's art is composed entirely of fragmented body parts— objects that, in their isolation, seem devoid of vitality or spirit. It is through our gaze as viewers that these inert forms are animated; more profoundly, it is our capacity for empathy and love that reawakens their soul. What I find most compelling about Cherri's work is precisely this: he entrusts the viewer with the power to complete the piece. He provides all the elements, but it is through a shared journey-between artist and audience-that his creations are imbued with life and meaning
Isn't the unwavering act of standing together in times of adversity (solidarity) the most profound expression of love we can extend to one another?
