The Bookart
of Mohammed AI-Shammarey An Attempt at Beauty under Siege
The cycle of life of refuse in existence is a cycle of
disintegration and expulsion. What was an object of use,
even beauty yesterday, is now refuse waiting to be restored
to existence by time, in the form of a historic relic. Hence
refuse has its oxide, its activating agent that
rehabilitates it for existence. The Bookart that we are
about to view is a plastic art record that belongs with
deliberation to the above cycle, either by becoming part of
it or by disrupting its function. Its pages are made of
recycled cardboard (the working material is active with high
symbolism here) and its cover is made of leather, specially
treated for such a task after its treatment with colors and
letters and some realistic marks so it may be in harmony
with the formation of - the tableaus - the pages that are
(drawn) by treating their surfaces, either by scratching
them or by affixing - collage - on them marks or trade marks
of the sort used in the years of the siege, to give a
testimony of beauty from them and of them, through (random)
movement in the habitat, which was marked by the
characteristics of the historic moment that formed all the
landmarks of the reality in which and towards which the
artist precipitated himself in a pressing desire to document
beauty, availing himself of his high visual responsiveness
and his unique sensitivity to movement on surfaces that
swarm with these marks. The Bookart, also contains a
dichotomy in comparison with - pop --art, in which paintings
have lost their mandatory framed quality, to become objects
without substance, some of them sensual not pictorial - in
the most extreme practice - that are heedless of the
historic right of existence of the canvas, to find awaiting
them the exhibition halls of America, Britain, and
Australia. The above-mentioned dichotomy consists of the
fact that the pages of Shammarey's Bookart, in as far as
they require a specific and limited type of documents, boxes
and marks that breathed the days of the siege in an attempt
to elevate the substance that was discarded by the
experiments of - pop art - as we pointed out. This Bookart
was -found - days after the insanity of the days of the
rockets and the sieges that followed, which transformed
handsome objects into debris intermingled with papers and
mixed with colors. The drawing alit by this debris onto
reality and expressed itself through it on an image
-coincidences - of paper and color on surfaces, which the
artist tries at times to highlight in their roughness, and
tries to tame at others, to reach a document of beauty that
is the thumbprint of the - siege - on the surface of the
bitter days. It is as if they were photographs that caught
the invisible in the dilapidation, in a violent and cruel
attempt to capture the essential meaning of their existence.
In this sketchbook there are marginal events that undertake
the task of signaling the energy of the margin that waylays
the center, through the semiotic role of this margin that
works with functionality higher than that of the center. Is
this all? Certainly not. Leafing through the Bookart-exhibition,
gives a good opportunity to realize the ability of art to
move in the midst of various forms of contextual and
environmental circumstances, including the subjects of daily
consumption, through an aesthetic practice with color, raw
materials, and other working materials, to achieve a quasi
constructional work that crosses with the insanity of
painting that followed the impressionistic abstract phase in
the West, which tried in all its power and noise to liberate
itself forever from the memory of the tableau, not only by
marginalizing the conventional framework of art, but also by
suspending it the moment any substance manifests itself. It
remains to point out that this Bookart is not a sudden
preoccupation with a new experiment for artist Mohammad AI-Shummary.
The instinctively experimentalist artist knows that he /s
the wanderer searching for the relics of the mechanisms for
order in objects that are ruled by the function of their
utility, to restore consideration to them, at times as
musical instruments, at others as piggy banks, which often
raise a controversy over their classification, whether on
the side of (ready made) or drawing them closer to (pop
art). Between this and that, his collages, colors, and
etchings function in a creative chaos that appropriates the
beautiful to its credit. All things that do not constitute a
visual stimulus for ordinary attention lay in wait for
Mohammad Al- Shammarey's fingers to turn them over and
instill in them the soul of beauty. Hence is his right to
sit on the imperial throne of the margin. Everything is
salvageable, and for it to be salvaged it needs to attract
the attention of this - artistic melting pot - the melting
pot of Mohammed Al-Shammarey
Khaled
Mutlak
Back
