donkey table
Upon a visit in 2005, years before the Arab spring, Tarik showed the garbage trucks that were donated by Europe. The trucks were not collecting garbage, they were left abandoned on the side of the road, broken, in some cases being used for other purposes such as hosting small shops. The garbage is still collected by donkeys, who are packed with crazy amounts of garbage, as they are able to manoeuvre the small messy streets.
The garbage trucks are useless for this purpose. Tarik sees the garbage trucks as a metaphor for Western imperialism, manifested in the Arab-spring, regime change and the Iraq war. Of trying to introduce a new system from a position of supposed superiority, but without any real interest for- or understanding of the integrity and workings of the society they are trying to improve, change, invade or steal from.Tarik collected the corpses of old disposed donkeys and took their worn skin, showing the marks of beatings and old age, and he made a sculpture about vulnerable and painful power structures.
You can change the regime (Saddam Hussein) or the replace the donkey with garbage trucks, but you are removing a (painful and maybe evil) balance. The donkeys are supporting a table, they are grazing in the white, lush donkey- paradise, framed by the open table. Where the tabletop is supposed to be, there is a hole. As you sit on the chairs, you look onto the necks of the donkeys, who form phallic symbols that peek between your legs.
These ‘executive’ tables are symbols for the power meetings that crony-capitalists have with each other. All sitting at a table and doing their mafia game, whilst riding the donkey, keeping people poor and the country corrupt and inefficient in order to maintain the status quo. The table is painted white so you don’t see the natural wood. It’s contained and put behind the white lacquer. A beautiful given about the sculpture is the voices of the woodworkers that speak through the ornaments. They see it as an insult having to create such a crazy thing as a donkey table. They want to carve things that are powerful. Not those ‘low-class’ donkeys. Tarik created an ‘assignment’ for them that they feel critical towards.
Yet, you can really see that these guys know what donkeys look like. There is a tenderness in the woodwork, like archaic greek sculpture. Different from a Jeff Koons sculpture where you just use the craftsmanship to make pop-art, this sculpture is also a portrayal of these workers. Their frustration with the assignment (and the demanding relationship with Sadouma), for example, let them to reveal parts of the donkeys that might be perceived vulgar.
