SAMI MOHAMMED (KUWAITI, B. 1943)
SAMI MOHAMMED (KUWAITI, B. 1943)

Sabra and Chatilla

Details
SAMI MOHAMMED (KUWAITI, B. 1943)
Sabra and Chatilla
signed and dated in Arabic on the base, and editioned AP/1
bronze with brown patina
28½in. (72cm.) high
Executed in 1982, arist proof from an edition of six
Literature
B. Alaoui (ed.), Art contemporain arabe: collection du Musée du l'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 1988, p. 156, (illustrated in colour p. 157)
S. Mohammed (ed.), he Art of Sami Mohammed, Kuwait 1995, pp.292-93 (illustrated in colour)
Exhibited
Paris, Institut du Monde Arabe, illustrated in colour

Lot Essay

On 18 September 1982 a massacre was carried out by a Lebanese militia group on the Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. Israeli Defense forces were externally surrounding the camps. The number of victims was estimated at 700.

Throughout the incident the degree to which each party was involved is still to this day a matter of controversy. On December 16, 1982, The United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it an act of genocide. It was adopted by ninety-eight votes to nineteen, with twenty-three abstentions: all Western democracies abstained from voting. It was a chaotic and tragic event that shook the whole world.

The art of Sami Mohammed has always be concerned with the suffering of man and with his suppressed freedom, conditions prevelant in much of the developing world. To commemorate this awful event, he cast this very moving figure in bronze.

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