National Portrait Gallery Presents DOUBLE TAKE, March 30 - Sept. 3

Photographs taken in a studio above a cinema in Lebanon and showing people of the same sex kissing or tenderly embracing have gone on display at the National Portrait Gallery, London, it was announced today, Thursday 30 March 2017.

Double Take: Akram Zaatari and the Arab Image Foundation (27 March-3 September 2017) comprises photographs taken from the early 1950s to the 1970s at Studio Shehrazade, a popular photographic studio run by Hashem el Madan in Saida, Lebanon.

The photographs were discovered in 1998 by the contemporary Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari and incorporated into the collection of the Arab Image Foundation, an organisation co-founded by Zaatari to collect and study images from the Arab world. As part of an ongoing archeological project, Hashem el Madani: Studio Practices, Zaatari has selected images from Madani's archive to put back into circulation today. Madani's studio became a theatre for people to act out different identities. The poses may have been influenced by popular films, which were screened in the cinema underneath Studio Shehrazade, and the element of performance is reinforced by the studio backdrops and props.

By returning to these historical documents, Zaatari explores the specific cultural and political histories contained within Madani's portraits. Saida's conservative culture in the 1950s and 1960s did not permit men and women to socialise outside marriage, and physical contact was strongly discouraged. Tactile gestures were rehearsed among members of the same sex, often friends or relatives, not necessarily couples. Madani recalls that 'people were willing to play the kiss between two people of the same sex, but very rarely between a man and a woman.' He remembers this happening only once.

Akram Zaatari (born in 1966 Sidon, Lebanon) is a filmmaker, photographer and curator. In 1997, he co-founded the Arab Image Foundation with photographers Fouad Elkoury, Walid Raad, and Samer Mohdad. His work is largely based on collecting, studying and archiving the photographic history of the Arab World. Akram Zaatari was selected to represent Lebanon at the 2013 Venice Biennale by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, curators for the Lebanese Pavilion.

Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, says: 'Akram Zaatari's project asks fascinating and very relevant questions about the representation of identity, tolerance and cultural understanding. Capturing moments of intimacy between people of the same sex, these tender but enigmatic images question assumptions just as much as they beguile in their simplicity and immediacy.'

Sabina Jaskot-Gill, Curator of Double Take: Akram Zaatari and the Arab Image Foundation, and Associate Curator of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: 'Zaatari's intervention raises questions about how we read - or misread - portraits when we look at them from a time and a distance far removed from their original moment of production. For Zaatari, these photographs have two authors and two dates, and tell two distinct stories to two different societies and audiences.'

Double Take: Akram Zaatari and the Arab Image Foundation forms part of a year-long programme of special displays and events, entitled 'I am me,' at the National Portrait Gallery exploring sexuality, gender, art and identity.

This includes David Gwinnutt: Before We Were Men (until September 24) a display that chronicles the 1980s London art and club scene of Leigh Bowery, Derek Jarman, Ossie Clark and Gilbert & George. Gwinnutt photographed directors, writers, designers and artists who together formed a vibrant and influential underground gay culture.

There is also Speak its Name! (until August 6) a display of photographic portraits to marking the fiftieth anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in England and Wales in 1967. This display includes portraits of fashion designer Alexander McQueen and journalist Isabella Blow, politician Angela Eagle, actors Ben Whishaw and Saffron Burrows, poet Jackie Kay, diver Tom Daley and singer Will Young. Their portraits are accompanied by quotations from the sitters who share their experiences of coming out. These range from coming out to friends and family, to wanting to be honest to their fans and the media.

Also as part of the I am me season, the Gallery's spring exhibition, Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun: Behind the mask, another mask (until May 29) draws together over 100 works by French artist Claude Cahun (1894-1954) and British contemporary artist Gillian Wearing (b.1963). While they were born seventy years apart, they share similar themes around gender, identity, masquerade and performance.