Exhibition | The Amateur and problems with metaphor by Mandy El-Sayegh

Opening: Thursday, October 17, 2019 | 5:00pm at Sursock Museum, Twin Galleries

Exhibition dates: October 17, 2019 - February 23, 2020 

Mandy El-Sayegh’s practice is rooted in assemblage. Executed in a wide range of media, including densely layered paintings, sculpture, installation, diagrams, as well as sound and video, El-Sayegh’s works investigate the formation and break-down of systems of order, be they bodily, linguistic or political. For Home Works 8, El-Sayegh presents two new works; video and sound piece The Amateur (2019), which places images from Western art history alongside those of death to interrogate our visual economy, as well as problems with metaphor, a room-sized immersive installation created on-site at the Sursock Museum’s Twin Galleries. Visitors walk on a floor-based piece composed of latex, a material used extensively by the artist for its intrinsic qualities of preserving matter while itself decaying. El-Sayegh’s interest in this medium also connects to its production in Malaysia, her country of birth, where the natural product is extracted by workers in a labour-intensive process. On the gallery walls, El-Sayegh uses latex again, layered with newspaper pages and hand mark-making.  

The Amateur, Mandy El-Sayegh, 2019, HD video (2’36”), looped, original soundtrack by Lily Oakes

problems with metaphor, 2019, Site-specific installation

problems with metaphor was commissioned for Home Works 8.

Born in Malaysia in 1985, Mandy El-Sayegh received her BFA in 2007 from the University of Westminster, London, followed by her MFA in Painting in 2011 from the Royal College of Art, London. She is represented by Lehmann Maupin. Solo exhibitions include White Grounds, Bétonsalon, Paris (2019); Cite Your Sources, Chisenhale Gallery, London (2019); assembled at Tel el Ajjūl, The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, Mexico (2018). Group exhibitions include Searching the Sky for Rain, SculptureCenter, New York (2019); Ecologies of Darkness: Building Grounds on Shifting Sands, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2019); and Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017). In 2017, El-Sayegh was shortlisted for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women at the Whitechapel Gallery.

This event is part of Home Works 8: A Forum on Cultural Practices.

Image courtesy of the artist.