Untitled

Details

AYMAN BAALBAKI (LEBANESE, B. 1975)
Untitled
signed in Arabic and dated '05' (lower left)
oil on canvas
39 3/8 x 30¼in. (100 x 76.8cm.)
Painted in 2005

Provenance

Agial Art Gallery, Beirut.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

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Lot Essay

'An artist's life experience, emotions and mixed feelings are usually reflected in his work. I am still ambigious about my emotions towards the figure of the Mulatham. I read it differently with time...We create fictional heroes because we need role models, but the face of the Mulatham is as much about defeat and disillusion as about heroism. When I drew my first Mulatham, I did not simply read it as a Palestinian fedae, the Lebanese civil war was on my mind too. There is also confusion about the word fedae and its root, derived from fadi (redeemer or saviour) which is from fada (to sacrifice oneself)...I like the confusion, the challenge, the provocation...Did Jasper Johns encourage imperialism by drawing the American flag? In the same way, I am not glorifying martyrdom.'

(The artist quoted in "Ayman Baalbaki in conversation with Rose Issa, Beirut September 2011" in R. Issa (ed.), Ayman Baalbaki: Beirut Again and Again, London 2011, p. 13.)

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