Straight Flush - The Balfour Declaration (1917)

2017 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

13 x 36 x 2 cm.

Bady Dalloul


The Great Game is a series of works composed of a number of card combinations illustrated by the faces of key political figures shaping the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East. Each reconstituted ‘hand of play’ corresponds to a diplomatic treaty establishing or modifying geographical borders. The plastic form of a poker hand chosen by the artist highlights the randomness of the process of fixing boundaries and the way in which they do not account for the lives of those located there. These eleven works cover two major themes of Dalloul’s artistic practice, play and power relations in geopolitics. In this combination, Dalloul focuses on the Balfour Declaration featuring images of David Lloyd George, The Viscount Milner, Baron Rothschild, Arthur James Balfour and Leo Amery. Signed in 1917 by Arthur Balfour, former British Foreign Secretary, this open letter is addressed to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild, eminence of the British Jewish community and is proof of the promise made on behalf of the British government by Lord Balfour to recognize a Jewish national home in Palestine. This promise marked the history of the Middle East forever; the state of Israel was created in 1948 as a result of this British commitment.


Bady Dalloul cunningly employs collage across various media: texts, drawings, video, and objects to produce powerful works commenting on the past and the present. His collages imply a construction, the fabrication of a space that is simultaneously autobiographical, critical, poetic and narrative. Thus, he makes narratives where the real and fiction, and individual and collective experiences, enter into a permanent dialogue questioning the official historical grand narratives. The artist conceived of a fragile book, tattered by time and long use. It’s a diary, and he has patiently filled every page. He has taken notes ever since his childhood spent in Paris and Damascus, cutting out and pasting in illustrations from history magazines and books to make up stories like Badland (1999–2004). His practice began as a way to keep busy and counter boredom and the incomprehensibility of the crisis that has held Syria in its grip for decades. For 5 years, he filled his notebooks with definitions, notes on events, information (scientific, geostrategic, military, economic and historical) and maps. A long-term project guided by a question, an obsession: do images represent the truth of our world?


Colors:



Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Flush, Algiers Agreement (1975)
© » KADIST

Bady Dalloul

2017

geopoliticalThe Great Game is a series of works composed of a number of card combinations illustrated by the faces of key political figures shaping the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

The 20th Annual Puppy Bowl Pits Team Fluff Against Team Ruff — and Everyone Wins
© » KQED

The 2024 Puppy Bowl: Team Fluff, Team Ruff Go Head-to-Head | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer upper waypoint The Do List The 20th Annual Puppy Bowl Pits Team Fluff Against Team Ruff — and Everyone Wins Mark Kennedy, Associated Press Feb 7 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email Some of the adorable participants in this year's Puppy Bowl...

Circumstances for Early Arrival, 2022
© » KADIST

Young Min Moon

2022

Young Min Moon’s recent paintings repetitively portray the rituals bound up in the Korean tradition of Jesa ...

Podcast 58: Research and Practice in Performance-Making
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Podcast 58: Research and Practice in Performance-Making | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Performance (Podcast) May 6, 2019 Duration: 29 min As emerging art-makers having recently graduated from B...

Other works by: » Bady Dalloul  
» see more

Flush, Algiers Agreement (1975)
© » KADIST

Bady Dalloul

2017

geopoliticalThe Great Game is a series of works composed of a number of card combinations illustrated by the faces of key political figures shaping the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East...

Inner Child
© » KADIST

Bady Dalloul

2022

With Inner Child , Bady Dalloul continues his ongoing reflection on migration and belonging, putting in balance levantine and Japanese histories...

Scrapbook
© » KADIST

Bady Dalloul

2015

Bady Dalloul’s Scrapbook is a 48 minute video beginning from his birth, tracing major global events of the 20 th century, including the beginning and current Occupation and colonization of Palestine, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, assassination of family members and the Syrian diaspora...

Straight, McMahon-Hussein correspondance (1916)
© » KADIST

Bady Dalloul

2017

The Great Game is a series of works composed of a number of card combinations illustrated by the faces of key political figures shaping the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Sotheby’s to Sell €11m Collection from the Hydra Home of Pauline Karpidas - via The Art Newspaper
© » LARRY'S LIST

The British patron’s annual meetings on the Greek Island were a “who’s who of the contemporary art world”...

Antonia Williams, 79: Vivacious Wordsmith for Vogue — and Art Collector - via The Sunday Times
© » LARRY'S LIST

Throughout a 22-year career at British Vogue that spanned the Swinging Sixties, the explosion of punk in the Seventies and the power-dressing Eighties, Antonia Williams was one of the leading figures in fashion journalism...

The Annotated “Gujarat and the Sea” Exhibition
© » KADIST

CAMP

2011

The Annotated “Gujarat and the Sea” Exhibition is a collateral project within the larger body of work around the Indian Ocean, entitled “Wharfage” (2009-13) which has included over the years a radio event, several books and a film...

Tezos Blockchain's Foundation Launches £1m Fund to Collect NFTs by African and Asian Artists - via The Art Newspaper
© » LARRY'S LIST

Misan Harriman, the first Black photographer to shoot a British Vogue cover, has been entrusted with the collection—which launches as cryptocurrency markets plummet in value...