AAAKHEN AKH!

“In ‘Akh!’ or ‘Aahhh!’ (1993), a diptych dedicated to the United Nations, the sense of anguish expressed by the groaning sound of the word, itself cradling in tiny script a moving poem by the artist/poet, seems to accentuate, beyond its immediate historical context and collective concern, the artist’s own agony as he labours to transmute pain into creativity and senselessness into meaning.”

“Nonetheless, as the double-framed picture moves sideways and the funereal black of the aleph, with its roots fanning out into some heart’s core, assumes more density and pointedness, its maddah (sign over the aleph) seems to release a fat drop of black blood and its roots break free, while the kh on the left takes on darker smudges as it comes in to contact with the open spaces. Here the cry of anguish is itself transformed beyond an individual’s sense of distress to a wider, universal articulation of grief and desperation, perhaps in parallel with Munch’s ‘The Scream’, that very emblem and herald of our modern anxiety, alienation, and despondency.”

Original name (Arabic): آخين آخ
Original production date: 1993
Artwork Size: 200cm x 150cm
Materials: Diptych in acrylic and ink on paper, mounted on canvas
Location of Original: Private Collector, Kuwait

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