The Lost Springs, 2011. Consisting of two brooms of 3 meters, 22 flags of the Arab League.
‘The Lost Springs’, a minimal and poetic installation consisting of the twenty-two flags of the nations belonging to the League of Arab States resting at half-mast.
Beneath the flags of Egypt and Tunisia, two lone brooms lean against the wall as implied flagpoles. Each making reference to the uprisings that led to the fall of the respective leaders in both nations this past spring, President Ben Ali in Tunisia and President Mubarak in Egypt.
The device bears sharp and clever commentary, employing both national and civic symbols.
The flag, a modern totem that signifies political identity and attribution coupled with the broomstick, the device for keeping ones domicile in order. The evident absence of brooms below the remaining 20 flags evoking the obvious next question, which nation state(s) and their long-overdue neo-patriarchal dictators deserve the next Spring cleaning? As fate would have it, it was Libya and Col. Muammar Gaddafi.
This artwork was censored at Art Dubai, March 2011.
About
Mounir Fatmi (b. 1970. Tangier, Morocco) lives and works in Paris, France. He constructs visual spaces and linguistic games that aim to free the viewer from their preconceptions. His videos, installations, drawings, paintings and sculptures bring to light our doubts, fears and desires. They directly address the current events of our world, and speak to those whose lives are affected by specific events and reveals its structure.
His work deals with the desecration of religious object, deconstruction and the end of dogmas and ideologies. He is particularly interested in the idea of death of the subject of consumption. This can be applied to antenna cables, copier machines, VHS tapes, and a dead language or a political movement. Although aesthetically very appealing, Mounir Fatmi’s work offers a look at the world from a different glance, refusing to be blinded by the conventions.
All images courtesy of the artist. All rights reserved.
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