Karíma Al-Mukhtarová

Date of the event

4. 2. 2023 — 14. 5. 2023

Place of the event

Alšova jihočeská galerie

As a conceptual multimedia artist, Karima Al-Mukhtar realizes that her work is strongest in the places from which a compelling narrative can be told. Like a characteristic thin red thread, literally and symbolically, the desire to capture the germ of this narrative flows through her work. Her contrived emphasis on traditional craftsmanship at a time when similar crafts are dying out tries to present the time necessary for such a narrative in a non-violent way. In this revelation of the fragility of time, she recalls the famous Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, who comes to the fore of the story at the moment when she is about to cast off her husband and choose a new man in his absence. Penelope agrees on the condition that this happens only when she finishes the shroud for Odysseus' father Laertes. But what he weaves during the day, he rips apart at night. Penelope steals time with her endless sewing. In the same way, Karíma Al-Mukhtarová steals it in her rhythmically and physically present detailed work, which, however, does not lack the sovereignty of an expressive gesture, disturbingly honest. The exhibition is dominated by her large-format photographs of her own stitched palms, in which short messages are inscribed, waiting to be torn apart, just like Laertes' shroud. In dialogue with the feeling body, there are dominant objects of glass panels with hundreds of holes, interwoven with colored threads. On one side, a record of miniature wounds in the palm of the hand, on the other, the incredible fragility of transparent glass.