Bonhams
Lot 65
Chaouki Choukini (Lebanon, born 1947)Desert Gate wooden sculpturesigned 'Choukini', executed in 1996, this work is uniqueHeight: 68cmFootnotes:Provenance: Property from a private collection, Paris'When I was younger, I used to go to my grandfather's house during school holidays in a village called Choukine in the south of Lebanon, where I would contemplate mountains, trees, valleys, wells — unlike the views of Beirut. This led me to develop my love of nature, which influences my work. My expression of a landscape is not an exact representation of nature — I'm turning it into something metaphysical, imaginary and with an element of mystique.'- Chaouki Choukini'This Lebanese artist arrived in France directly from his village in South Lebanon. At the time, he carved strange, imaginary and soberly baroque constructions in wood. The formal evidence, on the borderline with fantasy, imposed itself: these sculptures simultaneously appear as irrational monuments, checkerboards for games of chance, figures that are interlocked and involved with a sort of big metaphysical game. Since then, Choukini has divested himself to the advantage of curves and surface planes. He uses the material as a keyboard and extracts from it powerful and delicate formal compositions on which are displayed a figural suggestion, almost at the second degree. The word 'keyboard' is even more so appropriate here as it also translates the sought after and achieved effect, that of music, which is simple and pure similar to a melody, yet sometimes more complex and almost like an orchestra. The mute music present in Choukini's sculptures is a challenge to the absurd canon that fatally shoots here and there to kill, without succeeding, Lebanon's soul and body, which stands like a strong and tender mountain, just like the sculptures and sculptor I have here mentioned.After forty years of career as a sculptor, Chaouki Choukini has always remained true to himself. This man who came from Lebanon, a country of rocks and sun, always pays close attention to the sincerity of objects and shapes, sometimes giving priority to the music of the material, other times to objective representation. This ingenious balance makes each and every one of Choukini's creations quake with emotion. Choukini's sculpture reveals the poetic, yet often so tragic, strangeness of our condition.'- Salah StetieFor further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com
