The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

Tablet from Set 3, from the series Les Septs Stations Célestes (The Seven Heavenly Stations)

Tablet from Set 3, from the series Les Septs Stations Célestes (The Seven Heavenly Stations)

2018
(Algerian, b. 1947)
Algeria
Alabaster
Overall: 49.5 x 49.5 x 3.2 cm (19 1/2 x 19 1/2 x 1 1/4 in.)
Dudley P. Allen Fund 2020.220.b
Location: 108A Sub-Saharan

Did You Know?

Blending historical and high-tech art-making techniques, these tablets’ designs were first drawn, then carved with a digital router.

Description

The paired alabaster tablets of Les Septs Stations Célestes contrast Arabic calligraphy (right) with Rachid Koraïchi’s unique visual language and drawings (left). Over many decades, Koraïchi has developed a personal “alphabet of memory,” blending Chinese, Sumerian, Hebrew, Tamazight (Amazigh), Tifinagh (Tuareg), and Arabic letterforms or symbols with numbers, codes, and drawings. These digitally sculpted tablets evoke historical Islamic architecture, especially Egypt’s gleaming “Alabaster Mosque” in Cairo, made from the same semiopaque stone. This set features excerpts from Lebanese-American writer and painter Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) on the subject of love. The word love repeats throughout, emphasizing its centrality.
  • 2018
    Collection of the artist
    by 2018
    (Aicon Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2020-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Aicon Gallery. Rachid Koraïchi: Les Sept Stations Céleste. New York, NY: Aicon Gallery, 2020. Reproduced: pp. 14-15.
  • Arts of Africa: Gallery Rotation (African art rotation). The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (December 10, 2021-July 2, 2023).
  • {{cite web|title=Tablet from Set 3, from the series Les Septs Stations Célestes (The Seven Heavenly Stations)|url=false|author=Rachid Koraïchi|year=2018|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.220.b