Serial Success

The art of making images was largely censored in and around the Middle East for many centuries. Censorship prohibited representation of God, so artists invented Arabesque and represented God by repetition of patterns, to symbolize his transcendence and infinity. They demonstrated God’s perfection by introducing intentional mistakes in the artwork, to confirm that only God can do perfection.

There are many levels of censorship; it may be a limitation imposed from above, it may be a choice made by a society, and it may be a necessity felt by an artist. During the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1991) I gave up representation in art to express with text art. This self imposed censorship became the form, the content, as well as the message of my art. Art censors itself, to register the changes of time.

Serial Success is one of my Single Letter Of The Alphabet (SLOTA) works. It was made in Los Angeles, in January 2011, during the first weeks of the much awaited Arab Spring. Like many of my works, Serial Success declares a break from an unwanted past, it confirms the transcendence and the infinity of the imperfect human who always finds the way to censor the world and repair himself.