Stux Gallery presents Barakat.  Barakat is an Arabic word, meaning a gift or an offering.  Nine artists were invited from the Middle East and Africa to make a cultural offering.

A few artists spoke to me.  Sara Rahbar’s photographs are compelling.  I did not need a back story or even to know that she is from Iran to make a connection.  In Love Arrived and How Red #8 we see what looks like a woman in a white wedding dress.  She is wearing a black fabric mask over her face with only her eyes and red lipstick lined mouth peering out.  Her head-dress is a an American flag draped down her back.  The flag functions as an opened burqa – revealing the awaiting bride.  In Love Arrived and How Red #4, we see a couple holding hands again hidden under black face masks and peculiar costumes – a camouflaged military uniform on the left and a bright traditional Persian dress on the right.  We can read these characters by their charged costumes but it is hard to tell their true identities.  The deep greens of the camouflage and the reds of the Persian robe pop off the flat black background.  These are curious photographs that hold the gaze and demand attention.  Who are these people? How can we take off their theatrical attire to reveal the identity of the person underneath?

Maïmouna Guerresi Black resin carpets are also interesting.  These prayer rugs are normally woven in bright colors.  Although they are mass-produced in the Muslim world they are revered in every household because they are a bridge to Allah.  Guerresi has sucked the holiness from the carpet.  His carpets maintain the standard markings of the traditional prayer rug – the illustration of Mecca surrounded by geometric patterns – but they are lacking the woven touch.  These carpets are not something that can be loved the same way.  They are made from black plastic – fall in category with car tires sooner than in category with religious objects.  Stripping the prayer rug of its softness is a subversive act on the one hand and on the other it is perfectly in line with the philosophy of Islam.  Islam teaches about the immateriality of worship.  In the absence of a prayer rug Muslims can pray on any common cloth or even on the bare ground.  Guerresi’s Black resin carpets hit home in aligning the prayer rug to a common mass-produced object – showing that what is precious is the worship – not the carpet.

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