‘Sifr’ Exhibition

Sifr is a solo show by the multimedia artist Hady Sy that surveys the role of capital in society and politics. Coinciding with the 2017 edition of Photomed, the exhibition covers the ways in which capital shapes the world at large, and the art world in particular. Through word play and pastiche, Sifr begins with local manifestations of a universal condition, and moves into their global reverberations. It traces how capital mediates intimate (often gendered) relationships, and even more assertively, how it structures our very thoughts.
The object from which the entire exhibition emerges is the “Zero dollar”. Hady Sy appropriates the globally recognized currency of the US dollar but purportedly voids it of value by changing its content to provoke the spectator-collector. Can money, he asks, whose value is null sell for money? Yes, he speculates. As Hady Sy reveals, the zero has been historically significant in finance since Al-Khwarizmi’s algorithms. What his work gestures towards is the problem with the value-form itself.

Hady Sy (b. Beirut, 1964) is a multimedia artist, principally engaging in photography. He has a bachelor degree from Beirut University College and master’s degrees from EFAP Image et Média and in Political Science (D.E.S.S.) from the Sorbonne. From 1989-1996, Hady founded and directed the International Festival of Fashion Photography (IFFP) in Trouvile, Budapest, Barcelona, Monaco, Tokyo, Biarritz, and Paris. He was the president of the Association of the Promotion of Photography (APP) in Paris and New York, and is member of La Maison des Artistes in Paris. In recent years, Hady Sy has had solo shows in Paris, New York, and Beirut.