Clean Cut

Acrylic on Canvas | 120x180cm | 2024

Clean Cut

In her films, installations, and paintings, artist Diana Al-Halabi (1990) critically reflects on power structures. One of the works Al-Halabi is showing at Prospects is the painting Clean Cut (2024). It shows a butcher washing his hands while his customers - painted in cool hues, are closely monitoring him from the left. To his right, in a warmer colour palette, are the animals he butchered: human bodies. Al-Halabi painted this scene after a photograph of Gaza, with the bodies of murdered people lying in the streets. Just like in her painting, a cat was sitting on top of one of these bodies. It was unclear whether this cat was mourning, trying to warm the body, or just looking for food. By reinterpreting this horrifying image in her painting and using the butcher to link the dead bodies to his customers, Al-Halabi is commenting on how the West is dealing with the genocide in Palestine. She depicts the hypocrisy that, in her view, shapes everyday reality: people do not want to see violence and pretend that a certain hygiene - and with it, civility - is important. In reality, however, violence is accepted as long as it happens at a distance. "That is the double standard the civilized nations adhere to," Al-Halabi says. This work is a visual representation of white innocence, a concept coined by the anthropologist Gloria Wekker, referring to the denial of racism and colonialism by white people. At the same time, Al-Halabi also falls back on Bertolt Brecht's Fünf Schwierigkeiten beim Schreiben der Wahrheit (1935). Much like the famous author attempted in this work, Al-Halabi is challenging the spectator to relate to uncomfortable truths.

Text written by Sarah, Esther, or Esmee for the Prospects exhibition with Mondriaan Fonds.

Photo by Tommy Smits