Yassin Haute Couture

2018 | Exhibition | Text, neon signs, photography, embroidery, video, sound sculpture, artist book

For several years, the artist has attempted to paint a complete portrait of his deceased father, Samir Yassin, using fiction, forgery, lies and rumors, as elements integral to his practice. The works in this exhibition focus specifically on the period when his father was working as a fashion designer in Beirut and abroad, garnering fame and international acclaim. In-part archive, fiction, and in-part recreated objects and materials, the works draw us into the designer’s thought process, those who wore his creations, the unseen realms of his imagination, and the annals of memory attached to the fabric of fashion itself. The artist connects threads of several stories by digging up a past that doesn’t want to be uncovered, one that is constantly eluding him, obscured by ghosts that inhibit him from seeing it clearly. As if to reveal a treasure lying at the bottom of the pit, the artist tries to discern secrets that his father carried with him to the grave, assuming the role of undertaker and of voyeur. In his theoretical treatise, Archive as Burden, he disregards the casualness of visual information within archival documents, to rather plumb what lies behind veiled truths.
Using fragments of rumors collected from long lost relatives, the artist begins to build a dramaturgy of obsessions that mirror his own, as if inherited from father to son. Stories of erotica, intrigue, and deceit converge dramatically in a text that recounts the life and times of Samir Yassin, the great designer. The neon works illuminate the fusion of transmitted narratives, but at the same time alludes to the generic name of a perfume or cosmetic brand, recreating the facade of a couture boutique, as if to deliberately confuse the gallery space with a shopfront display.


Exhibition views - Yassin Haute Couture, Marfa’ Gallery - photos by Mansour Dib