Eternity Container

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This work draws on the visual traditions of Nubian culture to explore what is lost and what becomes obscured during cultural change. Hassan’s family are of Nubian and Egyptian descent and were forced to leave their ancestral home in southern Egypt in the 1950s when the construction of the Aswan Dam flooded the area in which they lived, creating what is today Lake Nasser. Moving to Naples in his twenties to study art, Hassan sought to bring to the surface the Nubian culture of his ancestors by reapproaching calligraphy as a form of cultural preservation. In Naples, Hassan became influenced by the Kufic and Riqqa styles of Arabic calligraphy and, over time, developed the distinctive visual approach that he has since termed 'sign-paintings,’ in which he fuses calligraphy and abstraction to create new kinds of cultural artefact.

Eternity Container exemplifies this technique. Stringing together repeated letter forms that at first glance appear to be sentences and yet cannot be read, Hassan presents us with a calligraphic construction that feels familiar but the meaning of which remains elusive. In choosing form over function, Hassan gives the work a rhythmic quality, allowing our eye to follow the letter-forms while taking in the wider composition of the vase – which for Hassan represents the transfer of cultural knowledge. The vase’s stacked levels come together to form the ‘container’ of the title; its blue interior drawing our eye to its mysterious contents. Around the vessel’s edges, Hassan lays out paths to unknown places, dotted with compass markings, strewn artefacts and nameless dwellings.

Born in Cairo to Nubian and Egyptian parents, Hassan’s work has long been influenced by the centuries-old visual language of the Nubia region of southern Egypt and northern Sudan in which his forebears lived. After moving in the 1980s to study in Naples, Hassan became part of the Italian avant-garde, which allowed him to develop his practice into new formats including set design and physical performance and to connect with international artists. In 1988, Hassan became one of the first African-Arab artists to participate in the Venice Biennale and, in the years afterward, exhibited widely in international exhibitions before moving to Edinburgh, where he is now based.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

Artist

Fathi Hassan (1957 - )

Title

Eternity Container

Date

2023

Medium

Eternity Container - Acrylic, oil pastels, pencil, gold leaf, gold-coloured glitter, and fabric - on paper

Dimensions

height: cm width: cm depth: cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Richard Saltoun, August 2024

Provenance

Richard Saltoun; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 8 August 2024

GAC number

19333