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The Sfeir-Semler Gallery unveiled Wael Shawky’s individual exhibition at their Karantina venue in Beirut. This exhibition inaugurates a noteworthy, multi-dimensional initiative encompassing a film, an array of sculptures, paintings and a distinctive installation.
Premiering in the Arab world, I Am Songs of the New Temples is a film produced for the Pompeii Commitment program and takes as its starting point the ancient city buried under the ashes of the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD, and the multiple strata of interconnected Mediterranean societies found therein. The work explores the construction of narratives surrounding the genesis of humanity, and how stories transmit across space and time, through generations, millennia and continents, often overlapping as one civilization fades and another one emerges.
Shawky examines the construction of identities based on national narratives that, in turn, rely on myths, mythologies, folk tales or legends. The film utilizes the remnants of Pompeii, as well as the Nile in upper Egypt, as its backdrop. Actors, donning masks of ceramic or papier-mâché, echo the vanished inhabitants of a city steeped in ancient Greek, Roman and Pharaonic worlds. They are in constant motion throughout the film, dancing to music composed by the artist, reminding us that even what we perceive as eternal is in fact perpetually transforming.
Following the theatrical traditions of ancient Roman and Greek comedies and tragedies, the actors recount Greek mythology in Arabic amidst the ruins of an amphitheater. The action unfolds in a bygone era, yet the characters insert themselves into an even older story, thereby highlighting the intangible bridges between civilizations and cultures and their mutual influences. They narrate the story of Isis, the Egyptian goddess who becomes the descendant of Greek gods in Hellenic narratives. This goddess, who resurrected her husband Osiris after his assassination, was revered by Pharaohs as the divine mother and guided the deceased to the afterlife. However, in ancient Greece, she is depicted as the wife of Zeus, while Osiris, the sovereign of Egypt, becomes her son. Later on, Christian iconography would adopt the portrayal of Isis with her son Horus for the representation of the Mother of God with her child Jesus. As written by Hesiod in his Theogony, the emergence of this mythic cosmos is the result of a fortuitous multicultural convergence, a significant moment in Western intellectual history that occurred in the Aegean region, joining traditional currents from vastly diverse ancient cultures.
Shawky’s film is, in essence, a quest: the search for a visual representation of this permeability and transmission. It narrates the story of the emergence of humanity, with narrative elements showing its transcultural origin. The film absorbs us imperceptibly, as we follow humanity’s tribulations, the endless cycle of life and death, the dichotomy of merciful and vengeful gods… Myths transform into livers, eventually morphing into realities which are forgotten centuries later, fictions that we nevertheless continue to rely upon to decipher the world around us. Similarly to a Greek tragedy, the film’s final scene prophesies human dystopia and the eternity of the gods, symbolic pillars of ancient cultures. The characters, resembling puppets, imperfectly human, evolve in a hybrid state, their final chant becoming the emblem of the sins of future generations, while children’s voices take over, heralding the future.
The phantasmagoric hybridity of the film is reflected throughout the exhibition. A celestial atmosphere, heightened by the Pompeiian red of the walls, envelops the grotesque faces of masks borrowed from the costumes, and the surreal colors of the canvases. These portray a subjective flow of fictive interpretations of these historical-cultural metamorphoses. The works allegorically reference humanity’s inherent need to explain and understand its own origins: borrowed, reinvented, appropriated, transposed, retold… these same stories of creation, destruction, divine punishment, renewal and rebirth often recur in the foundational myths of many religions and societies, modified to suit a particular context.
Biography:
Wael Shawky, born in 1971 in Alexandria, Egypt, is a renowned artist who also operates out of Philadelphia, USA. In 2010, he founded MASS Alexandria, a non-profit institution fostering contemporary art education, offering a space for artistic endeavors and interdisciplinary research. Shawky has displayed his works globally in notable venues such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, MoMA P.S.1 in New York, and the Serpentine Galleries in London.
His extensive exhibition history showcases his significant influence in the contemporary art scene, with a series of awards punctuating his career, including the Honorary Citizenship of the City of Palermo in 2017 and the Grand Prize of the 25th Alexandria Biennale in 2009. Beyond individual accolades, Shawky was also an artist-in-residence at the Serpentine Gallery’s Center for Possible Studies in London in 2011. His creations have found homes in prestigious international collections, such as the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and MoMA New York, making him a substantial figure in modern art circles globally.
From August 31, 2023 at 6:00 PM until December 29, 2023.
Place: Sfeir-Semler Gallery
Address: Tannous Building – 4th floor – street 56 – Jisr Sector 77 – Karantina – Beirut 20777209
Phone: +9611566550+9613611913