mounir fatmi / Suspect Language / 2012

Moroccan-born and Paris-based multimedia artist mounir fatmi presents his first solo exhibition in South Africa, titled Suspect Language, at Goodman Gallery Cape Town in September.

mounir fatmi constructs visual spaces and linguistic games that aim to free the viewer from their preconceptions of politics and religion, and allow them to contemplate these and other subjects in new ways. His videos, installations, drawings, paintings and sculptures bring to light our doubts, fears and desires.

Suspect Language is an exhibition of recent work by mounir fatmi. Upon entering the gallery, the audience is confronted with Sleep Al Naim, a film projection in which a virtual, 3D image of Salman Rashdie, the English writer of Indian origin, is asleep. A fatwa was declared against Rushdie by the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, due to the perceived blasphemy in his novel The Satanic Verses, and the book was banned in most Arab countries. Inspired by Andy Warhol’s experimental film Sleep, the artist chose Rushdie as his main character, showing him asleep, as if in a state between life and death. This is the state that the artist seeks to convey in Suspect Language.