A Retroactive Monument for a Chimerical City - 1999
Exhibited at the �Corneesh� (Beirut�s seaside promenade), produced by
Ashkal-Alwan
I want to be what the official �Corneesh� discourse wants me to be. I want to please the new Arab Lebanon, the public, the ministry of culture and organizing committee, of course. I want to be an artist.
I will buy and exhibit a plaster statue. I would have preferred marble but it�s expensive, it�s alright though, because I will paint the plaster statue gold. It will certainly be a statue of a woman, because a woman�s body looks better than that of a man. This is common knowledge.
I will place the statue on a gold pedestal, facing the sea. The people who will sit on the bench covered with red velvet cushions will have the woman�s bottom in their faces, but it�s alright because it will be painted gold.
Extracts from an imaginary interview with the artist who created the Gold Statue:
What does abstraction represent to you?
Abstraction is a very authentic and traditional mode of expression, since Islamic Art, based on the repetition of geometric forms.
And sculpture?
I wonder how I got to sculpture. I don�t know.
What was the reaction to your avant-gardist style?
The public received my first works very badly. It continued till the mid 80�s, but it changed dramatically since I started having shows in Europe�s and the world�s greatest museums.
What do your sculptures add to the house they�re in?
They are a pleasure to the senses, like a beautiful woman we would like to look at her all the time.
Do you like women?
Of course.
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