Each work in Michel Obultra 1 represents a range of possible methods of multiple production. This plurality of mechanical means is echoed in the works’ internal multiplicity. Beate Engl’s ON AIR is a slogan as well as a musical score composed of two layers of paper; Rochelle Feinstein’s Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain captures the results of refraction and dispersion on white light. It at once depicts and suspends the elusive optical phenomenon its title hints at. Maryam Jafri’s Lineage, a photographic mise-en-abyme, draws on several splits within the artistic subject: presentation and representation, disclosure and concealment, individual authorship and inscription. Finally, Khalil Rabah’s Pencils from The Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind locates a dialectic within a souvenir article: national identity and universal emancipation are the multiples here, divided by a non-existent museum whose specter haunts the writing instrument.
Beate Engl ON AIR 2018, 20 x 29-31cm black seamless paper, fluorescent lithographic ink on paper; punched with custom air pressure controlled punching machine in Munich by Beate Engl, additional printing in Philadelphia at Michel Obultra
Rochelle Feinstein Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain 2018, 36 x 24cm 7-color risograph on torn Mohawk 70lb vellum; printed at Risolve Studio, Lincoln College, Pennsylvania
Maryam Jafri Lineage 2018 24 x 33cm (sheet) 20.5 x 30.6cm (print) archival inkjet on Epson Exhibition Fiber paper
Khalil Rabah Pencil case including two pencils of The Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind 2015 20.7 x 2.5 x 2.5cm Two pencils, cardboard case originally produced for Kunsthaus Hamburg in 2015
Packaging printed at Shoestring Press, Brooklyn.
Exhibited at Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin 29 Sept – 31 October 2018.