seeking al-tawhid in andalusia jamm-art.org
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AKIM MONET
seeking al-tawhid in andalusia PHOTOGRAPHY BY AKIM MONET
info@jamm-art.org
All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright holder, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. copyright Š akim monet 2013
www.seekingaltawhid.com
About JAMM
About AKIM MONET
Established in 2009, JAMM is an independent strategic art advisory service founded by Kuwait based art-journalist and former Middle East Director for Phillips de Pury Sheikha Lulu Al-Sabah. The mission of JAMM is to create cultural projects without geographical boundary, from large-scale exhibitions to small-scale events and activities, which advance Arab and Iranian artists in the West and Western artists in the East, thus furthering collaboration between the two. JAMM currently operates exhibition spaces in Kuwait and Dubai and has an office in London. For more information on JAMM, please visit www.jamm-art.org
Born 1968 in Geneva. Swiss Citizen. Lives and works in Berlin. Studied comparative literature and art history at Cornell University, New York State. Akim Monet has been showing his work publicly since 2002. He has had several solo exhibitions of which “Passage to India” in New York and Mexico City, “Homage to Gaudi” in Geneva and Belgium, and “Pergamon” in Paris. Monet's work is on public display at the Deutsche Bank Collection, New York. In addition to numerous articles in the international press, a monograph about Monet's work was published in 2003: “The Space Between” (New York: Infinite Point Press). isbn 0-9728647-0-9
SEEKING AL-TAWHID IN ANDALUSIA The idea for "Seeking Al-Tawhid" came to me while thinking about the longstanding nonacceptance of depictions of humans and animals in Islamic art, and the resulting development of the Arabesque in which abstract geometry and stylized organic motifs are used to symbolize, within our manifest realm, that which is beyond manifestation. I pondered about a possible connection between the invention of this visual language, which leads the eye back and forth between the second and third dimension, and the practice of photography, in which the representation of three-dimensional subject matter is rendered on a flat surface. I discovered that the infinitely extensible designs in Islamic art, that are themselves made up of individual, self-replicating units
have been interpreted as visual demonstrations of the singleness of God and his presence everywhere. They represent 'unity in multiplicity' and 'multiplicity in unity'. Technically the term for this 'Oneness' is Tawhid - a belief in God's uncompromised unity and transcendence. The bestknown expression of this Divine Unity is 'La-ilaha-ill-Allah', (Quran 112:1): 'There is no god but God'. With these thoughts, I embarked on a journey that began in 2006 in Andalusia, where in the words of British orientalist and archaeologist Stanley Lane-Poole, "Whatever makes a kingdom great, whatever tends to refinement and civilization was found in Moorish Spain." Akim Monet
plates
12
13
Untitled 1, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
14
15
Untitled 4, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
16
17
Untitled 5, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
19
Untitled 8, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 82 x 57 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
20
21
Untitled 13, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
22
23
Untitled 18, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 82 x 57 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
24
25
Untitled 19, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
26
27
28
29
Untitled 27, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
30
31
Untitled 29, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 82 x 57 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
32
33
Untitled 30, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
34
35
Untitled 31, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
36
37
Untitled 34, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 82 x 57 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
38
39
40
41
Untitled 38, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 57 x 82 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
42
43
Untitled 39, 2013 Archival Pigment Print on 100% cotton 350 gsm acid free watercolor paper with deckled edges 82 x 57 cm - Ed. 7 + 3 AP
frame
46
47
Untitled 27, 2013 (Framed example) Archival Pigment Print with deckled edges mounted floating in custom artist’s frame with Plexiglas Print size: 57 x 82 cm Framed size: 74,6 x 104,6 x 4,5 cm
CATALOGUE DESIGN Anne-Marie Visconti Claudio Fortugno Akim Monet
www.seekingaltawhid.com