Images(15)

9A Letters

Artist Hazem el Mestikawy Egyptian, 1965–2024

Date2005

MediumRecycled cardboard and paper; nine components

DimensionsLinear installation of nine components: approx. 177 in. (449.6 cm)

ClassificationsWood

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest)

Object number2008.13/a-i

On View

Not on view

Label TextEl Mestikawy’s distinctly architectural forms are constructed from raw materials found in the urban environment. In addition to realities of modern life, the artist’s work is informed by the philosophy of Sufi Islam, apparent in his attention to script and references to numerology (here, the mystically significant number nine). 9A Letters is a sculptural rendering of the first letter of nine alphabets, each used in Egypt’s region at some point in its ancient history. El Mestikawy cites intensive attention to a single form—in this case, the letter A—as an expression of singular devotion.

When a letter is abstracted into three dimensions, script takes on new meaning, overriding the letter’s function as text. Recycled materials originally generated for mass consumption are submitted to El Mestikawy’s creative process, synthesized and reinserted into his personal meditation, which moves beyond conventional language, definitions, and form. The history of knowledge and passage of time are embedded in these varied alphabets: some current; others relegated to obscurity.ProvenanceCreated 1965; collection of the artist, Vienna and Cairo; sold to NCMA, 2008.Published ReferencesType Faces (exhibition catalogue) (Waidhoffen/Ybbs, Austria: Stadt Museum, 2006),

Programm:Text - Schrift als Form, Kunst als Poesie (exhibition catalogue) (Vienna: Praesens Verlag, 2007), illus. (color) pl. 3.

Lower Austria Contemporary 2007 (gallery guide), illus. (color) unpaginated.

Manal el-Jesri, "Back to the Basics" in Egypt Today (January 2009), briefly discussed 68, illus. (color details) 66, 68.

“NKA Roundtable III: Contemporary African Art and the Museum,” in NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art 31 (Fall 2012), illus. (color) 106–107.
Exhibition HistoryVienna, Austria, Galerie Atrium ed Arte, "UND+ (Bild und Schrift)," October 22, 2005-February 11, 2006.

Waidhofen/Ybbs, Austria, Stadt Museum, "Type Faces," April 21-May 14, 2006.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–October 23, 2023. Object Rights Statement

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