11/22/14 - 4/26/15

Fathi Hassan

Maurita Poole, Mellon
Curatorial Fellow for Diversity in the Arts

Egyptian-born Nubian artist Fathi Hassan (b. 1957) is known for paintings and drawings of deliberately illegible Arabic script. His intentional obscuring of text draws attention to the ambivalence embedded in written language and graphic form. This approach mirrors the difficulty of  expressing experiences of forced migration and displacement.

Migration of Signs highlights works created by Hassan in the last five years. The works are allegories of spiritual journeys and reform movements like the Arab Spring. They illustrate that the meaning and interpretation of symbolic signs is not fixed.

Selected works