Mandy El-Sayegh: assembled at Tell el Ajjūl
Solo Exhibition | Feb. 3-April 7, 2018
TMR Guadalajara | PAOS | Museo Taller José Clemente Orozco
This is a past exhibition.
Mandy El-Sayegh explores histories of the body, illness, and in a new immersive installation that incorporates sculptures and paintings.
About the Exhibition.
TMR is pleased to present the third exhibition of its TMR Guadalajara series in collaboration with PAOS. This iteration encompasses a new project by Malaysia-born, London-based artist Mandy El-Sayegh. The show marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in Latin America.
El-Sayegh's practice is perhaps best described as a genealogical endeavor that traces a body—both individual and communal—in perpetual becoming. For El-Sayegh, the body and history shape each other, and as they change, the residues they leave behind manifest as memory. The task of genealogy for El-Sayegh is then not just to expose a historical body or the epistemic violence that forges it discursively, but rather to trace its transformations—mobilizing memory as source material to assemble complex layered trajectories that connect charged personal stories to historical circumstances and broader philosophical structures. Through the formal logics of painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, El-Sayegh expands the biographical into urgent conversations about Arab subjectivities and the colonial projects that continue to define them.
Tell el Ajjūl, the place El-Sayegh’s project title references, refers to an ancient archeological mound in Gaza—a site that for El-Sayegh functions as a beginning—personally, historically, ideologically, and materially. Her father's homeland is a charged site from which El-Sayegh negotiates a familial history that she didn't experience directly yet has somehow inherited through the stories, images, and behaviors she grew up around. El-Sayegh’s relationship to this past and this place as postmemory scholar Marianne Hirsch states is thus not mediated by remembrance, but rather by “imaginative investment, projection, and creation.” Through a new immersive installation, a series of intimate sculptural objects, and a suite of monumental paintings, El-Sayegh navigates the tensions that accompany grappling with the experiences of those who came before without letting those experiences overwhelm and potentially erase our own.
About the Artist.
Mandy El-Sayegh (b.1985, Malaysia) received a BA in Mixed Media one Art from the University of Westminster, London (2007) and an MA in Painting from the Royal College o Art, London (2009). Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions such as Sharjah Biennial 13: Tamawuj (2017); Taking Part, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2016); this is a sign, Carlos/Ishikawa, London (2016); Room Services, New York Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, New York (2016); For Pete’s Sake, Carl Kostyál, Stockholm (2016); RCA Painting Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London (2010) and Mash Experience, Oxford Street, London (2007). She lives and works in London.
Credits
Mandy El-Sayegh: assembled at Tel is organized by TMR in collaboration with PAOS and curated by Cesar Garcia, TMR Executive and Artistic Director.
TMR's program is made possible with the support of its Board of Directors, Big Mistake Patron Group, International Council, and Contemporary Council.
Major support for this exhibition is provided by an anonymous donor.
Support for TMR Guadalajara is provided by Colección Diéresis and Jose Noe Suro.
Special thanks to Sophie, Clara Dublanc, and Eduardo Sarabia.
Photo Credit: Carlos Diaz Corona. Copyright 2018. The Mistake Room Inc.