Where Spirit and Semen Met

(2008)

230 × 74 cm

mounted photo and curtain

Courtesy Saatchi Gallery

"Yes, approach my young man and draw back the curtain, there is a puny truth behind."

We have been taught that a concept, both as an idea and a set of mental symbols, lies beneath the represented. One has to dig beneath the surface to find the concealed layers. There is nothing new about confronting such an idea, but this specific piece mocks concealment / revelation, the visible and what lies beneath. The famous appearance of Rimbaud is altered, or should I say, when alteration met unanimity, the permanent alteration, the task of "Je est un autre", froze like a disturbed poïesis.

All these past thirty years a blue backdrop has been hanging behind major political scenes; a blue firmament, curtain, screen or box. This divine shroud is supposed to enfold leaders. The cinematographically transcendent Pastor carries with himself his constructed nature. His conveyed spirituality is doomed to fail and his divinity is nothing but beams of blue, as the human race receives spirit through semen and a glandula or a skull-bone stands for that holy entity.

(from 'Breaking News; Contemporary Art from the Middle East' exhibition catalogue, curated by Daniela da Prato, Paris, 2008.)