Sharif Waked

PALESTINE/ISRAEL 1964

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Sharif Waked takes Israeli soldiers’ two most common directives in Hebrewinflected Arabic—“Get Out of Here!” (yalla ruh min hon), displayed here, and “Your I.D.!” (jib al-hawiya)—and places them in the imperial monogram of the tugra. In combining the sophisticated written form of calligraphy with the banal colloquial, Waked brings Islamic art and the language of the checkpoint into an unlikely encounter.

The meeting point of this encounter is Sulayman the Magnificent’s imperial monogram, or tughra, which was placed on all state documents, written decrees and coins issued by the royal court. Known for conquering large swaths of the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, Sulayman was also a patron of arts and architecture. In 1542, he restored the Dome of the Rock and built what today stand as the walls of Jerusalem’s old city. Under Sulayman’s reign, the Ottomans developed a complex form of calligraphy called Diwani, which found expression in his unique tughra that declared him “ever victorious.”

Waked ponders linguistic transformations and deformations as he delves into the ovals, arabesques and vertical lines of this elaborate form of Arabic calligraphy. He explores the tughra, which literally means “enclosed garden,” to reflect on the timeless conundrums of historical triumph and defeat and the loaded friction between aesthetics and power.

Sherene Seikaly