Annabel Daou

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Annabel Daou
1967-
Threshold
ca. 2004
Graphite on two sheets joined with tape.
30 x 44 1/4 inches (76.2 x 112.4 cm)
Gift of Eve Aschheim and John Yau
2022.139
Notes: 

Daou is a multi-media artist whose work addresses contemporary political issues through the lens of language and communication. In 2003, with the onset of the American invasion of Iraq, Daou stopped painting and began to draw, making work that incorporated writing - for example, transcribing the Declaration of Independence phonetically in Arabic. Threshold is among the last figurative works she created before transitioning to language as her primary subject. Daou used delicate pencil lines to render two structures created from cards on adjoining sheets. The structures, which fill the sheets, appear monumental, but a house of cards is also an emblem of precariousness, a quality that is underscored by her use of tape. Daou connects the cards to her childhood in Beirut during the Civil War, when card games were a way to pass the time in bomb shelters.

Inscription: 

Inscribed on verso: AD / 2004 / Threshold NNPM

Provenance: 
The artist (Gallery Joe, Philadelphia); Eve Aschheim and John Yau; gift to the Morgan.
Artist page: 
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