09/09/2024
At the Reina Sofia Madrid
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
‘At those terrifying frontiers where the existence and disappearance of people fade into each other’ (2019, Dur 11 mins)
This video comines imagery of the wall that runs along the Gaza Strip, avatars drawn photographs of injured people and beautiful text from the Edward Said 1986 poem ‘After the last sky’. With huge impact, the video speaks not only to Palestine but broader contexts where violence is used to silence.
I found the juxtaposition of this work with Picasso’s (1937) ‘Guernica’ two floors up in the Museo powerful and emotive.
I was hugely impressed with curation at the Reina Sofia – it provided the best contextualisation of work that I have perhaps ever seen. The painting is shown, alongside Picasso’s preparatory drawings, Dora Mar’s photographic documentation of the work as it was made, historical information about the bombing of the Basque town, and information about the Spanish Pavillion at the Intenational Expositiion of 1937: Architecture, art and propaganda, for which the work was commissioned. Another room, showed a series of works about the suffering of mothers of Guernica.
A fantastic museum and collection of 20th century Spanish and international art – set in a former hospital with a new wing by French architect Jean Nouvel. A feast!
