Labor Berlin 9: Paola Yacoub

Shortly after the Lebanese civil war, Paola Yacoub worked as an archeologist and artist at the dig in Bey 002 in the heart of Beirut. She combines these experiences with her photographic practice of the last fifteen years – complemented with new works dealing with a region in eastern Turkey.

The rock there is black, as black as the walls in the nearby city of Diyarbakir. These "Baetyli" – literally meaning "inhabited by God" – were considered sacred. But is a black rock a meteorite, a lunar stone or a block of basalt? The creation of the rocks leads to a path of speculation which reaches its zenith with Antonin Artaud, who addressed the old myth of the ancient “rock God” Elagabalus and his great admirer, the Roman emperor Heliogabalus in his essay "Heliogabalus, or the Crowned Anarchist".

Curated in cooperation with Corinne Diserens.

Paola Yacoub, born in Beirut, has been living in Berlin since she came here on a DAAD scholarship in 2004. Her works have been shown at various locations, including the Kunst-Werke Berlin and the Venice Biennial.

Please also take a look at the film:

In Cooperation with Berliner Künstlerprogramm/DAAD