Set 3, from the series Les Septs Stations Célestes (The Seven Heavenly Stations) Algeria

Set 3, from the series Les Septs Stations Célestes (The Seven Heavenly Stations)

2018

maker

Rachid Koraïchi

(Algerian, b. 1947)

Algeria

Alabaster

Overall: 49 x 49 x 2.9 cm (19 5/16 x 19 5/16 x 1 1/8 in.)
Weight: 17.9 kg (39.46 lbs.)

Dudley P. Allen Fund 2020.220

Location: 108A Sub-Saharan

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Did You Know?

Blending historical and high-tech art-making techniques, these tablets’ designs were first drawn, then carved with a digital router.

Description

The paired alabaster tablets of Les Septs Stations Célestes contrast Arabic calligraphy (right) with Rachid Koraïchi’s unique visual language and drawings (left). Over many decades, Koraïchi has developed a personal “alphabet of memory,” blending Chinese, Sumerian, Hebrew, Tamazight (Amazigh), Tifinagh (Tuareg), and Arabic letterforms or symbols with numbers, codes, and drawings. These digitally sculpted tablets evoke historical Islamic architecture, especially Egypt’s gleaming “Alabaster Mosque” in Cairo, made from the same semiopaque stone. This set features excerpts from Lebanese-American writer and painter Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) on the subject of love. The word love repeats throughout, emphasizing its centrality.