Syria

By Andrew Frost

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In Khaled Sabsabi’s video installation Syria fragments of the ceilings of various modern buildings are sliced and rearranged into intense and hypnotic kaleidoscope-like patterns. Presented on the gallery floor and wall in a grid of 24 frames, Sabsabi’s installation is reinterpretation of existing architectural space into a field of geometric abstraction that, thanks to the cue of the title, offers the viewer a unique take on traditional Islamic patterning.

Where geometric patterning in traditional Islamic art has a kind of maximal effect, where surfaces of paintings, mosaics, fabrics or craft objects are loaded with the interlocked geometry of squares and circles, the overall impression is one of visual completeness, a kind of maximal-minimal shift where the eye moves between the detail and the field. In Sabsabi’s installation the space becomes the pattern, mimicking the effect of the traditional while updating the process with computer technology. Originally produced for inclusion in the 9th Shanghai Biennale in 2012 and recently staged at Art Stage Singapore, this is Syria’s first Australian showing.

Pic: Khaled Sabsabi, Syria, 2012.