Raed Yassin's 'Hell Between My Teeth' at Beirut Art Center Explores Mortality and Memory

Raed Yassin's solo exhibition 'Hell Between My Teeth, Phantom in My Heart, and Never-Ending Hum' at Beirut Art Center marks his first major show in Lebanon, departing from his 20-year focus on collective history and consumer culture to address themes of failure, death, loss, and memory. Curated by Reem Shadid, the exhibition features 14 bodies of work created over the past four years, including seven new commissions. Yassin uses dark humor and theatrical elements to pose existential questions through recognizable imagery and pop culture iconography. The pandemic served as a turning point, fostering a collective consciousness that Yassin explores. Works like 'The Company of Silver Spectres' (2021) use found photographs from flea markets, adding color and fading to evoke ghostly presences. 'The Theatricality of a Postponed Death' (2022) features an inflatable of Lebanese comedian Shushu, an icon from the 1960s-70s who died in 1975 during the Lebanese Civil War, and pays homage to Raif Karam, Yassin's former professor who staged a protest parade in 1984. The inflatable, which inflates and deflates like a breathing machine, serves as an allegory for Lebanon. The exhibition runs until 7 September.