photo caption

---

SEVERED HUMANITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: In his last exhibition, George Bahgoury writes, Youssef Abdelki shocks and disorients, for he presents reality as it is. It is thoroughly contemporary work, this, a fact that glows on the surface of every square painting on the Akhenaten Gallery walls -- a space seldom entered by simple, everyday people for fear of the heavy security at its gate.

Yet it is to such people -- Arabs -- that the Syrian-Egyptian artist dedicates his efforts. He was born in a village south of Damascus called Maloula, whence his name. But, as the huge canvasses here show, his vision is both global and painfully aware of Arab conditions. Abdelki had already proven his mettle as a painter and art journalist before he produced this admirable preface to life in the 21st century, which demonstrates his ability to penetrate into the political enigmas of the age. He presents only skulls -- of animals and fish as well as humans. And he places them on a ball that is the earth. The impression is one of precariousness: at any moment the arrangement might flounder, if only ever so slightly, letting blood soil the underneath; the blood, we are given to feel, may well cover the entire globe, dripping all over it, eliminating its features.

The artist believes the current brutality that rages throughout the world is but a return to a time before civilisation. He can hardly believe that the 21st century should have brought it about. He mentions, by way of example, Iraq, Palestine, India, Afghanistan. Which is why, he says, the black paintings show not a drop of yellow -- or red, or green. Black is the colour of the hatred that fuels such horror. To convey this, he balances black and white with grey, surrounding the skulls and slaughtered fish with absence. Occasionally he calms: there is a vase with a single white flower in it, as if world peace is still possible; the high heel of a woman's shoe, the woman having disappeared in the monotone mist. The work absorbs your eyes completely, and, looking, you weep.

I knew Abdelki in Damascus in the mid-1970s, and we haven't been separated since, but I was joyful when he chose to settle in Cairo, where he won the Biennale prize and now exhibits in the most prestigious gallery. Now I recall how I ended up walking behind him and the late Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali, outside the People's Gallery in Damascus. Al-Ali's kangaroo gait was made prominent by his tight jeans as he stamped angrily, no doubt thinking of something to draw, and it looked as if he was on horseback. Abdelki, quieter if equally knightly, looked like he had just dismounted. And I remember thinking they were fellow warriors broaching the horizon of freedom.