Aziz + Cucher, in collaboration with Magnolia Editions, have created a monumental digital jacquard tapestry as a new component of "Some People,” their series of projects representing human emotion and gesture within a landscape that has been devastated by either misguided war or ongoing tribal and nationalistic conflict. The tapestry, measuring approximately 2m x 3m, depicts over 30 figures entwined in a perplexing but emotionally charged ritual in the midst of a landscape of rubble from which a futuristic city is emerging. The multitude of figures and the complex composition echoes both Bosch and Delacroix, but more poignantly, connects this work to the traditional depiction of scenes of military conquest created for the courts of the European Renaissance, albeit maintaining a thoroughly contemporary atmosphere that reverberates as one considers the current crises in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine.
“SOME PEOPLE (tapestry)” does not allude to any specific conflict or political situation in particular, but rather, it tries to evoke the senselessness and futility of these ongoing struggles and the anxiety of the historical moment we all inhabit.