Three Games

An unpredictable ensemble of monochromes on paper, woven together by the Surrealist imagination of the duo WHITE PAPER (Carel Marso and Jacques Vartabedian), revives the playful, and experimental dimensions of art making to examine the fragility and humour inherent in human communication.

Three Games is quite literal, in a way, as the duo shares the outcomes of several months of playful and intimate collaboration.
Let’s Build A House imagines indoor spaces that challenge conventional notions of domesticity, and Exquisite Corpse reprises the Surrealist parlour game to introduce chance to the process, as each artist contributes to continuing the work without knowledge of the other’s previous contribution. Draw On My Back leverages touch as a medium: one artist draws on the back of the other, who then strives to recreate their collaborator’s hand circuit, letting go of the help of vision to explore physical connections and the evocative potential of touch.

By drawing inspiration from Surrealist methods, which embraced spontaneous expression, WHITE PAPER connects with contemporary themes rooted in the literary and artistic movement initiated by André Breton in 1924. Its influence, spanning the 1930s and the rise of Fascism, and the socially conservative 1960s, inspired a wide range of artistic expressions globally. In the Middle East, Surrealism informed artists such as Groupe Art et Liberté in Egypt (1938-1948) who, in the lead-up to World War II, actively confronted fascism and colonialism, and, in Lebanon, transpires in the dreamlike yet unsettling paintings of Palestinian-born Juliana Seraphim (1934–2005).

Three Games is a fragmented universe composed of mundane objects, hallucinatory landscapes, and floating characters, a manifestation of the absurd that allows us to reconnect with the very essence of our feelings, and find – especially given our recent circumstances – avenues for fruitful contemplation.