Lot 112: Laila Shawa (Palestinian, b. 1940)

Laila Shawa (Palestinian, b. 1940)
Tribute to Schumi
signed and dated 'SHAWA08' (lower left)
acrylic and metallic paint on canvas
39½ x 39½in. (100 x 100cm.)
Painted in 2008

Tribute to Schumi belongs to Laila Shawa's penultimate series, Sarab, a collection of 29 paintings which emerged after a visit to Dubai in 2007. It was created by digitally manipulating a geometric pattern sourced from L'Art Arabe, the infamous publication of Islamic architectural ornaments collected and illustrated by 19th century artist-adventurer Emile Prisse D'Avesnes (1807-1879). Shawa's dazzling trademark palette, here loosely based on the Italian national flag, the inclusion of the equine Ferrari logo and the treatment of motion as mere potentiality, illustrate well the artist's preoccupations since the 1960s: the reduction of form to fields of colour and the clear communication of a socio-political message underpinned by the principles of Pop-art. Shawa has expropriated Islamic geometric design from its historical context asserting, instead, its role as primary visual identifier of Islamic popular culture in the broadest sense. In the absence of noteworthy (read global) branded consumer goods originating in the Islamic world, Islamic geometric design as culture-specific element is inserted to fill the gap. The original is thus manipulated to serve the artist's customary narrative process in the form of a pan-Islamic postmodern visual meta-language. It is both the subject and object of art-making. (Dr. Christa Paula).