They Will Be Seen Competing In Costructing Lofty Buildings

Arabic Calligraphy sculpture
58 X90 X 35 CM
Concrete
Artfair, Armory show, New York, USA.
2014

Common Grounds
Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany
2015

Yatatawaloona Fil Bunyan is an installation by Nasser Al Salem (b. 1984), a Saudi artist whose primary practice revolves around calligraphy, the age-old art of Islamic writing, which Al Salem has learned at an early age. A characteristic feature of his art today however is his exploration of the medium’s conceptual potential, manipulating it and creating complex and intricate visual works using a wide variety of techniques and non-conventional mixed media.

Translating classical religious-Koranic texts (and the ideas and power embedded within them) into fearless contemporary forms, Al Salem has used material as many and varied as neon light, stainless steel, Corian, silkscreen, gypsum, fabric, or wood and as unexpected as a hospital monitor.

In Yatatawaloona Fil Bunyan, Al Salem has positioned 58 X90 X 35 CM inches/feet high concrete blocks as a raw proxy for a cityscape of sorts, a configuration of built forms and interstitial space. Visually, the installation merely evokes the familiar anatomy of a group of buildings. However, seen from above, it reveals the title Yatatawaloona Fil Bunyan - which references a hadith [a narrative record of the sayings or customs of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions] - as calligraphy drawn from structures themselves.

In this hadith it is reported that, when asked about the signs of Judgment Day (and thus the end of the world), Prophet Mohammad replied: “Herdsmen will be seen competing in constructing lofty buildings (Yatatawaloona Fil Bunyan)”.

A stark reminder of the construction frenzy both in the artist’s local, and holy, city of Mecca and in the whole Middle East region, the piece creates a palpable tension between visual appeal and raw content. Materialising a prophecy, Al Salem's installation takes on a distinctively eschatological dimension when one recalls that according to Muslim belief, Arabic writing is considered part of the miracle of the Qur’an. In this context, writing, and a fortiori, calligraphy, the art of the spiritual world, is therefore not only the word, but also the face and medium of God.

Architecture and Islamic calligraphy are inexorably intertwined but in the case of Yatatawaloona Fil Bunyan, the cityscape-installation literally becomes the “concrete” embodiment of the hadith, thus subverting the traditional rendition of calligraphy as a hand in motion, a space inscribed, the arts of brush writing and the artist's gesture on a surface. By not being inscribed (as in drawn, painted or carved) and by exploring the three-dimensional, this work literally and metaphorically arises from traditional terrains.

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