Khalil Rabah: What is not
4 March - 4 July 2022, Al Mureijah Square, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE. Overview of the artist's ongoing projects since the 1990s. Curator: Hoor Al Qasimi.
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Untitled, All is well, 2017
From 'The lowest point on earth memorial park', 2017
Mutlimedia installation; dimensions variable.
Installation view: What is not, Sharjah Art Foundation, 2022.
Untitled, All is well references one of the most iconic images of the Palestinian struggle—Jamal Al Mahamel, a painting by Sliman Mansour of an old porter carrying the Dome of Rock and the city of Jerusalem on his back. Initially painted in the 1970s and gifted to Gaddafi, it was destroyed in an American bombing on Libya. Rabah discovered a small photograph online of the artist's studio where Mansour attempted to repaint the work by observing a commercially available reproduction.
The thumbnail has been enlarged and painted, and is presented alongside a hyper-realistic sculpture of the man from the second version of the painting, who—because of its incomplete state— carried nothing on his back. In the installation, the man seems to be trudging towards a rusted container. Untitled symbolises an open casket funeral within which Hebrew letters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation rest inside like scattered bones.
© Booklet Khalil Rabah: What is not
Sharjah Art Foundation, 2022
© Photos: Danko Stjepanovic. Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation
4 March - 4 July 2022, Al Mureijah Square, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE. Overview of the artist's ongoing projects since the 1990s. Curator: Hoor Al Qasimi.