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Hamdi Attia: Ruling the world in igpayatinlay
By libby
December 19, 2006 · 1 Comments
World Map, the central piece in Hamdi Attia’s show, Aegnapea, at Pageant Gallery
I’m a little ambivalent about Hamdi Attia’s exhibit, Aegnapea, at Pageant: Soloveev Gallery, which by the way has a swell new web site.
Slought had a fabulous piece by Attia earlier this year in one of the back rooms, a plugged-in television set, its innards removed and unfurled all around to create a force field of radiant mis/communication (see post). I hope you were lucky enough to catch it out in the wilds of West Philly.
detail, World Map
Behind Attia’s presence at both Slought and Pageant is the University of Pennsylvania MFA connection. Both galleries mine that connection. On top of that, both galleries have the distinction of an international focus, bringing art to Philadelphia that we might not otherwise see.
And speaking of the University of Pennsylvania, since the death of Neil Welliver, Penn has been turning itself into a contemporary art power house–a really exciting thing for the city of Philadelphia. Interesting works by Penn MFAs have been showing up all around town. And it looks like some of the graduates are staying.
But I digress.
Attia, a native of Egypt, but now a naturalized U.S. citizen working in Queens, NY, has hung a giant world map that looks not that different from any world map, except the land forms are made up. So are the place names made up–every one of them. Attia has created more than 4,000 weird names, creating a global map that’s unfamiliar in almost every way except for its proportion of land to sea and its format, which owes some debt to Mercator.
Computer for map exploration
There’s also a computer for map explorations, should you choose to take up the mouse while in the gallery. I found this idea of the world in the computer also interesting. In some ways, this exhibit however felt like Attia’s own exploration of the world in the computer.
The installation and mapped world is futureland, a place which appears to have one ruling country. Hmmm. Sounds familiar. And the inscrutable place names suggest that within that one powerhouse are many factions that cannot understand each other. At least that’s what it suggests to me.
detail, World Map
What’s wonderful about this exhibit is the point of view. I do not think this piece could ever have come from an American artist. Its meditation on power (especially in the time of the Bush presidency) and haves and have-nots and flimsiness behind the symbols of power all necessarily come from a person who grew up outside our country. We who are inside, even those of us paying attention, do not realize how we look from elsewhere, and are naive enough to think that our good will compensates for anything to someone who is out in the cold.
Heraldry meets superlogos on this flag
Attia has created nationalist Flags in which heraldry meets superlogos on a couple. I got why some of them were hung overhead, but because they were paper (a materials choice I took as frought with meaning), they seemed out of place. Except for the terra cotta peninsula map, I found the flags visually disappointing.
The flag of a topographic terra cotta peninsula–or perhaps it’s an explosion on a peninsula.
The concept of the map I loved, too, but like some of the banners, it was visually disappointing. Gallerist Daniel Dalseth said he was unable to find a printer locally who could make a finely tuned copy from the computer file–he and Attia ended up settling for a printer who specializes in signs–so the map is a little pixelated and hard to look at. But the file has the capacity to produce a swell version.
There was also a found map in a cabinet that I missed (I was rushing), and a statement of intent on the wall that you can read here.
I wasn’t sure how a resin-coated piece with dancers (above) fit in to the rest of the installation. I did like it. And the gallery felt a little bare.
My caviling notwithstanding, the work is intellectually rich and provocative, with a point of view we rarely see. I would like to see more of Attia’s work.
Tags: hamdi attia, pageant gallery
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This Attia’s work was also shonw in Canarias Biennial (Spain) and at L’appartement 22 (Morocco) http://www.appartement22.com