Oriental Accident

By Mounir Fatmi

"Oriental Accident, the piece for which the show is named and the center point for the exhibition, speaks to violent tension between tradition and youth in the contemporary Arab world. Recordings gathered from the demonstration in Maghreb during the Arab Spring play from speakers embedded into ornate Persian rug. Fatmi references the momentous rebellion again in The Year Zero, bas-relief that forms the number zero within an arrangement of coaxial antenna cables and cable pins. The empty space within the cable work is what gives the pieces its weight, just as the word zero gave numeric meaning to nothingness. Fatmi is referring to the infinite nothingness of a new beginning. Within the severe presence of Fatmi’s politics, the works are sprinkled with references to art history, film and literature. This conceptual dichotomy is also apparent in the visuals of the exhibition. Delicate lace is vandalized with black paint in Oil Oil Oil Oil and the white on white bas-reliefs are both muted and energetic. Traditional Arabic calligraphy is recontextualized in the videos works Mixology and Modern times, a History of the Machine, the calligraphy morphs to become graceful patterns, contrasting with the backdrop against which the artist is showing them."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mounir Fatmi
• Release date: Nov 2, 2021

Mounir Fatmi

mounir fatmi is a visual artist born in Tangier, Morocco in 1970. He constructs visual spaces and linguistic games. His work deals with the desecration of religious objects, deconstruction, and the end of dogmas and ideologies. He questions the world and plays with its codes and precepts under the prism of architecture, language and the machine. He is particularly interested in the idea of the role of the artist in a society in crisis. mounir fatmi's work offers a look at the world from a different glance, refusing to be blinded by convention. He brings to light our doubts, fears and desires.He has published several books and art catalogs including: The Kissing Precise, with Régis Durand, La Muette edition, Brussels, 2013, Suspect Language, with Lillian Davies, Skira edition, Italy, 2012, This is not blasphemy, in collaboration with Ariel Kyrou, Inculte-Dernier Marge & Actes Sud edition, 2015, History is not Mine, SF Publishing, Paris, 2015, and Survival Signs, SF Publishing, Paris, 2017. He has also participated in the collective book, Letter to a young Moroccan, edition Seuil, Paris, 2009.He has participated in several solo and collective exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world including: Mamco, Geneva, The Picasso Museum, Vallauris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, The Brooklyn Museum, New York, N.B.K., Berlin, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, MAXXI, Rome, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, the Hayward Gallery, London, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.His installations have been selected in biennials such as the 52nd and the 57th Venice Biennial, the 8th biennial of Sharjah, the 5th Dakar Biennial, the 2nd Seville Biennial, the 5th Gwangju Biennial and the 10th Lyon Biennial, the 5th Auckland Triennial, Fotofest 2014, Houston, the 10th and 11th Bamako Encounters, as well as the 7th Biennale of Architecture in Shenzhen.mounir fatmi was awarded several prizes such as the Cairo Biennial Prize in 2010, the Uriöt prize, Amsterdam, the Grand Prize Leopold Sedar Senghor of the 7th Dakar Biennial in 2006 as well and he was shortlisted for the Jameel Prize of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London in 2013.

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Lombard Freid Projects is pleased to present Oriental Accident, mounir fatmi’s second solo show with the gallery. The exhibition features a collection of works never before shown in the United States made between 2009-2012. As always with fatmi’s work, the art is political in nature and confronts issues in the contemporary Arab world. The native Moroccan, who lives and works in Paris, uses installation, sculpture and video to explore modern day industrialization, recent insurgencies throughout the Maghreb and the Middle East, and the inevitability of history repeating itself.

Oriental Accident, the piece for which the show is named and the center point for the exhibition, speaks to violent tension between tradition and youth in the contemporary Arab world. Recordings gathered from the demonstration in Maghreb during the Arab Spring play from speakers embedded into ornate Persian rug. Fatmi references the momentous rebellion again in The Year Zero, bas-relief that forms the number zero within an arrangement of coaxial antenna cables and cable pins. The empty space within the cable work is what gives the pieces its weight, just as the word zero gave numeric meaning to nothingness. Fatmi is referring to the infinite nothingness of a new beginning.

Within the severe presence of fatmi’s politics, the works are sprinkled with references to art history, film and literature. This conceptual dichotomy is also apparent in the visuals of the exhibition. Delicate lace is vandalized with black paint in Oil Oil Oil Oil and the white on white bas-reliefs are both muted and energetic. Traditional Arabic calligraphy is recontextualized in the videos works Mixology and Modern Times, a History of the Machine, the calligraphy morphs to become graceful patterns, contrasting with the backdrop against