"I might die before I get a Rifle" (1989)

works by Farrid Sarroukh, Janah Hilwé, Maha Traboulsi, Hannah Mrad and Mhammad Sabra
a Projekt of Walid Raad
curated by Marwan Baroudi

In 1989, Marwan Baroudi, chief curator of Part Four in Alexandria (Egypt) mounted an exhibition titled, I Might Die Before I Get A Rifle. The exhibition featured the works of five artists from Lebanon: Farrid Sarroukh, Janah Hilwé, Maha Traboulsi, Hannah Mrad, and Mhammad Sabra. It brought together five projects by artists who explored how the physical and psychological violence of the past fourteen years in Lebanon had been lived, experienced, and formed.
Remarkably, a few years later, in 2002, many of the same documents would emerge again, but this time attributed to The Atlas Group, an art project by the artist Walid Raad. Over the years, Raad has proposed various definitions of his project. Today, he refers to The Atlas Group as “an art project undertaken between 1989 and 2004 about the possibilities and limits of writing the contemporary history of Lebanon, and/or The Atlas Group is an artwork produced sometime in the last decade about a universe of objects, characters, and situations in and from Lebanon that can only emerge in fiction”.

In 2004, Johan Holten asked Marwan Baroudi to revisit his I Might Die Before I Get A Rifle. Baroudi and Holten were interested in making available again the 1989 exhibition, displaying the same artworks, complete with original captions. This proved to be more difficult than originally thought as Baroudi spent four years tirelessly locating and gathering the original artworks from the various places where they had scattered. This exhibition owes much to his endurance and perseverance, and to the generosity of the various collectors, institutions, and others who preserved these artworks. The Heidelberger Kunstverein is very grateful for their willingness to loan the works for this exhibition.

We Decided To Let Them Say “We Are Convinced” Twice. It Was More Convincing This Way. In the summer of 1982, I stood along with others in a parking lot across from my mother’s apartment in East Beirut, and watched the Israeli land, air, and sea assault on West Beirut. The PLO along with their Lebanese and Syrian allies retaliated, as best they could. East Beirut welcomed the invasion, or so it seemed, and that much is certain. West Beirut resisted it, or so it seemed, and that much is certain. One day, my mother even accompanied me to the hills around Beirut to photograph the invading Israeli army stationed there. Soldiers rested their bodies and their weapons as they waited for their next orders to attack, retreat or stay put. I was 15 in 1982, and wanted to get as close as possible to the events, or as close as my newly acquired camera and lens permitted me that summer. This past year, I came upon my carefully preserved negatives from that time. I decided to look again.

Like many around me in Beirut in the early 1980's, I collected bullets and shrapnel.  I would run out to the streets after a night or day of shelling to remove bullets from walls, cars, and trees.  I kept detailed notes of where I found every bullet by photographing the sites of my findings, and by placing colored dots over the bullet holes in my black and white photographs.  The color of the dots corresponded to the mesmerizing hues I found on bullets’ tips.  The colors were also faithful to the distinct code devised by manufacturers in different countries to mark their cartridges and shells.  Over the years, and to complement my collection, I purchased bullets from vendors on the streets, seeking out the entire spectrum of colors that adorned the tips of the 7.62 X 43 mm. cartridge used in AK-47s or of the 5.45 X 45 mm. cartridge used in M-16s.  It took me 25 years to realize that my notebooks had all along catalogued the 23 countries that had armed or sold ammunitions to the various militias and armies fighting the Lebanese wars, including the U.S., U.K., Saudi Arabia, Israel, France, Switzerland, and China.