All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset

“All the lands from sunrise to sunset”, a phrase attributed to the Mesopotamian king Sargon of Akkad, graphically invoked his claim to total dominion. Taking this assertion as both point of departure and provocation, this exhibition includes works by Alla Abdunabi, Fatma Al Ali, Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck (whose series of the same name provides the exhibition’s title) and Michael Rakowitz. Together they consider the persistence of imperialism through language, image, material, and myth.

Says the gallery: “Rather than presenting empire as a concluded historical form, the exhibition treats it as an ongoing condition – one that mutates, rebrands, and embeds itself in contemporary visual culture … Across these practices, the exhibition resists singular narratives. Instead, it stages overlapping temporalities in which ancient empires, colonial enterprises, and contemporary geopolitical formations mirror and refract one another … Rather than offering resolution, the exhibition invites sustained attention to the ways power endures, adapts, and continues to structure how the world is seen, remembered, and lived.”

To 1 June.

Above: Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, #FosilFuel (2018, detail. From the series All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset)