Mona Marzouk: The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Energy's Evil
BALTIC
Gateshead, England
20 February - 27 April 2008

by Rea Cris

This is Egyptian artist, Mona Marzouk's first UK solo exhibit. The bright yellow walls are inhabited by hybrids of machines and animals, metal and flesh, taking the form of dinosaurs, drills, cranes, helicopters, propellers, insects, mosquitoes and ferris wheels.   They do not resemble hieroglyphics or cave paintings but rather forgotten alien anatomical drawings.    The short film featured in the exhibit shows a whale-like animal, washed ashore, suffering, mouth agape, moaning in anguish.   Tubes leading to nowhere pump an unknown golden glittery substance from the creature as it struggles in defeated resistance.  

The title closely resembles Marcel Duchmap's 'The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even' another work with abstract hybrid forms. The critical theory that has been written about Duchamp's 'The Bride' could probably fill a whole library, and the work still remains as enigmatic as before.   Just like Duchamp, Mazouk's hybrid creatures inhabit their own universe and we can only understand them in Plato's cave where we feel for the walls for an explanation with our eyes closed.

http://www.balticmill.com/

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