Commitment in the Artistic Practice of Aref El-Rayess

Aref El-Rayess''s The 5th of June, or, The Changing of Horses was exhibited at the Salle de L''Orient in the city center of Beirut in April 1968. Dima'' wa Hurriyya (Blood and Freedom), the itinerant solo exhibition in which the painting first appeared, was held just nine months after the colossal Arab defeat in the June 1967 war. The work represented the defeat as an opportunity to fervently commit to the struggles that the war served to highlight, namely, the emancipation from bondage, colonialism, and capitalist domination. Monumental in scale and subject matter, The Changing of Horses crystallized the shift toward a revolutionary commitment (''iltizam thawri) in El-Rayess''s practice.

In this, the first comprehensive study of the work, Natasha Gasparian weaves together a social art history from the artist''s writings, exhibition reviews, guestbook comments, personal correspondences and testimonies, as well as social, political, and aesthetic shifts, particularly as they related to the debates on commitment (''iltizam) in the aftermath of the June 1967 war. Through this constellation of contextual elements, Gasparian reveals that the picture was presented and received, allegorically or metaphysically, as an idealized narrative of national liberation. By tracing the caesuras and slips in discourse, she exposes the social antagonism that is repressed and obfuscated in this ideal picture of reality, and she reconstructs an alternative reading of the artwork''s uncanny yet historically determinate character.