The work ŠamaŠ, an exceptional installation combining plastic art and musical composition, designed by Zad Moultaka, is exhibited for the first time in France at the Institute of the Arab World (IMA) in Paris. This creation, a real cry of alarm against the barbarity of weapons, highlights the destructive excesses of civilizations, while launching a fervent call for peace.
It was in 2017 that Lebanese artist Zad Moultaka created the installation ŠamaŠ (pronounced Shamash) which combines plastic art and musical composition. For the first time in France, it will be possible to discover this exceptional work at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris (IMA) until April 6. This is a project of immense symbolic significance whose basic idea is based on a profound reflection by Zad Moultaka on civilizations and their self-destructive cycles. “Every civilization carries within itself the germ of its destruction,” noted Moultaka during a presentation organized for the attention of the press, Monday, December 9, at the majestic headquarters of the IMA. This little phrase which inspired the artist underlines the cyclical and inevitable nature of human violence, which repeats itself endlessly.
Moultaka draws inspiration in this work from the famous Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian legal text, considered the first code of laws, engraved nearly 4,000 years ago, in Mesopotamia, on a black basalt stele exhibited at the Louvre. The trigger for the artist’s reflection in this regard came when the shape of this stele strangely reminded him of a bomber reactor, a war artifact from the 1950s! He then thinks about juxtaposing the two images and quickly understands that there is a deep meaning to be explored on this level. He digs deeper and, on the top of the stele of the Code of Hammurabi, he spots the god ŠamaŠ, god of the sun and justice. ŠamaŠ, like the sun, is a source of life, but also of destruction.
The symbol of ŠamaŠ is also a sort of sun in the shape of a four-pointed star from which emanates, from its center, radiation in the form of “waves”. The particular shape of the symbol leads the artist to establish a strange similarity with the propeller constituting the centerpiece of a bomber’s engine. Hence the approach of placing the engine in the center of the installation (presented at the IMA). The engine then becomes the symbolic representation of the god of “chaos”, of destruction, ŠamaŠ, whose destructive energy mixes with the memory of the dead and human suffering.
An immersive, visual and sound installation
The work offers both a visual and sonic experience, through which the artist merges several approaches to create total immersion. The Rolls Royce bomber engine, a 20-foot-tall Rolls Royce Avon Mk209, stands in the center of the room, facing a wall made of approximately 150,000 Lebanese coins. This is a metaphor for the Golden Calf, synonymous with the power of money, and therefore the link between war and money. This wall represents a destroyed city, a landscape of ruins seen from the sky.
Sound, the central element of this installation, emanates from 32 speakers arranged around the space. It is structured in a loop of 11 minutes and 54 seconds, based on the sound of a bomber engine, initially lasting 10 seconds, which he stretched and slowed down to 10 minutes. It thus becomes, after being filtered, a beating heart, evoking the lamentations of the victims of the bombings as well as the tears frozen in the din of chaos. Like a palindrome, it embodies this endless cycle of violence and justice, war and peace. “As if the violence of this engine carried within it, at the very heart of the sound, the traces of the people who were violated. As if in the belly of this monster, we could hear the tears”, underlines Zad Moultaka.
This musical piece which accompanies the installation is an original creation by the artist, performed by the Antonine University choir directed by Toufic Maatouk. Zad Moultaka draws inspiration from Sumerian laments, particularly songs evoking the destruction of the city of Ur, as well as an Akkadian lexicon of mutilated words. He then wrote a score whose voices, male and female, seemed to be lost in a fragmented sound universe, as if a bomber had pulverized the language.
Celestial and spiritual atmosphere
A poem of peace, recited in a child’s voice emanating from the bomber’s reactor, the heart of the piece, closes the work. This text, of moving depth, calls for reconciliation and an end to cycles of violence. It takes up an ancient text, a prayer, which ends with the phrase “the gate of the night closes on this violence”, like a wish for the extinction of evil and a return to peace.
It is a strange chant and a melancholy atmosphere which surrounds us and transports us on this disturbing journey which comes alive before us in a progressive then regressive play of light. This vicious circle, as well as the installation, leaves a celestial and spiritual atmosphere comparable to that of a temple. The artist invites us to enter this temple and live the experience, initially head-on, then by performing an immersion, evolving in the space and keeping in mind the ingredients of this installation which illustrate the concept.
“The installation creates an atmosphere that is both intimate and collective,” emphasizes Élodie Bouffard, head of exhibitions at the IMA. “Everyone, within this space, is led to reflect on their own position in the face of violence, history and the consequences of war and its disasters,” she specifies.
The work beyond Lebanon: a universal message
ŠamaŠ is a message that transcends the geographical and temporal boundaries of the Middle East. It is not only intended to be a reflection on Lebanon or the Middle East, but on violence in general, whatever its form and origin. “Yesterday’s executioners are today’s victims, and today’s victims will be tomorrow’s executioners,” explains Zad Moultaka, emphasizing the need to break this endless cycle.
Today, at a time of rearmament and the rise of global violence, ŠamaŠ appears as a tragically relevant message, indicates Nathalie Bondil, director of the IMA museum and exhibitions management division. The installation, a cathartic work, invites the viewer to a universal reflection on the issues of war, justice and humanity. Through strong symbols, ancient music and historical references, the work plunges the audience into a vertigo where past and present merge, where hope and destruction coexist.
This exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe is a unique opportunity to discover a monumental and deeply human work that resonates with the reality of today’s world. ŠamaŠ is a cry of hope, a call for the reconstruction of a common language, for peace and the elevation of men above conflicts.
