Pressed: When Words Were Earth
An installation by Andrew Ellis Johnson at Woodland Gallery,
February 10 –
Pressed: When Words Were Earth plays on the adjacency of Mosque/
Mosquito and in the psychologically sloppy terrain of swamps and drains that
reign and rain. The urgency and suppression inherent in
the etymology of pressed is clearly stated by the former head of Israeli
military intelligence and leading Arabist Yehoshaphat Harkabi. Twenty years ago, Harkabi
alluded to ¡®the solution¡¯ currently sought by
blood
let.
She
(Queen of Sheba, Bilqis) was invited to enter the
court (al-.sar.h). When she saw it, she took it for a sheet
of water, and uncovered her legs.
Solomon told her: ¡®This is a court paved with tiles of glass.¡¯
¡®O
Lord,¡¯ she said, ¡®I have wronged myself, and I submit to the
Lord
of all the worlds with Solomon.¡¯
(Sura al-Naml, Qur¢«¡¯an 27:44)
Medieval Islamic aesthetics, whether constructing
conceptions of beauty in relation to the ontological, religious and ethical, or
probing more autonomous physiological external and internal models of
perception, grappled with issues of splendor, interpretation and distinction. Pressed: When Words Were Earth
implicates the visitor in the myriad lenses and filters that fluctuate between
representation and abstraction, and that confuse an element for an image, an
image for a world view, a way of seeing for multiple perspectives. ¡°The exact meaning of the term ¡®.sar.¡¯ raises
problems. Neither the parable, nor
the exegesis that proposes various linguistic interpretations (such as from Tha¡¯labi, ¡®Ara¡¯is al-majalis), allows us
to set a firm structural determination of the object in terms of two- or
three-dimensionality. It could
refer equally to a palace, a tower, or a room, or to a simple floor or
courtyard¡± --Beauty and Islam:
Aesthetics in Islamic Art and Architecture,
Valérie Gonzalez. In the gallery
space we are, like the Queen of Sheba, caught in an environment that oscillates
between the credible and fantastic, the coalescent and dissoluble, the violated
and threatening. We are conscious
of every step we take, careful and curious about where we tread, apprehensive
on the threshold of comprehension and fearful of losing the forest
and
the trees.
On
the day when my words were earth
I
was a friend to stalks of wheat.
On
the day when my words were wrath
I
was a friend to chains.
On
the day when my words were stones
I
was a friend to streams.
On
the day when my words were a rebellion
I
was a friend to earthquakes.
On
the day when my words were bitter apples
I
was a friend to the optimist.
But
when my words became honey
Flies
covered my lips!
Mahmoud Darwish, Psalm Three
Translated by Ben Bennani
I hope, one may take solace, (despite over a million of centuries old olive trees destroyed, the thousands of lives lost and innumerable suffering) in the yearning in Pressed: When Words Were Earth. A yearning for twilight before, and dawn after, conflict, when the pressed may harken to a free and freely disseminated voice of multiple peoples, and the processing of the fruits of their peace, and oils of their
healing.
Venues:
Premiered at Chatham College, Pittsburgh, PA, February 10 - March 15, 2003
Solo installation at A Space, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, February 25-March 26, 2005
Installation in "Disasters of War: from Goya to Golub," Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, September 10 - December 11, 2005