Shadi Habib Allah Opens First Exhibition At Rodeo London

Shadi Habib Allah

Shadi Habib Allah’s first exhibition at Rodeo is about the condition of ownership. One learns to move and be around one’s very own things and takes them for granted. They are there, the walls, the furniture, the appliances; the animated amongst the inanimate.

When we die we take some with us, and then, as history has it, the adventurous and the hubristic find us and leave our very last homes open mouthed, bones facing the sky, the treasure gone. We, the everyman’s Pharaohs…

The dead body is an object. Since man is buried the para-economy it unfolds is endless. Objects change hands, continents, they fragment and transform ontologically to something new, relics of other times and different civilisations.

The economy of the dead is prime real estate. Specifically located within, or in the older times outside of the citadel. Cities’ corpse growth is intense and the need for more space is becoming more and more apparent and as with all habitable spaces, not everyone can afford them. Bodies are removed for new ones to replace them endlessly.

A burial ground, also a proof of land ownership, is like any other site. Like a zone with many layers of history; the present obviously as much constructed and calculated as the past.

About the artist:

Shadi Habib Allah (b. 1977, Jerualem) lives and works in New York. Recent group exhibitions include: New Museum Triennial, New Museum, New York (2015), The Verdant, Hacienda, Zurich (2015), Frozen Lakes, Artists Space, New York (2013), Empire State, Palazzio delle Esposizioni, Rome (2013), Caravan, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, (2011). Solo exhibitions with Green Art Gallery, Dubai and Reena Spaulings, New York.

Image: Installation view, Shadi Habib Allah, 30kg Shine, Rodeo, London, 2015-2016. Photo: Plastiques. Courtesy the artist and Rodeo.

Shadi Habib Allah: 30KG SHINE – RODEO – until 13 February 2016.

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