FAISAL ABDU ’ ALLAH
The Last Supper
By Bárbaro Martínez-Ruiz
SOME OF FAISAL ABDU ’ ALLAH ’ s most significant works touching upon themes of religious and social structures are the two-part photograph , now tapestry , The Last Supper I and II . He says in a 2010 letter :
Raised in a strict Pentecostal household , the iconography that was around as I arrived home from school , walked into the house and ascended the stairs , and before going to bed , were the eyes of Christ . Watching over me with the promise of eternal life as long as I surrender my soul to this man , image or construct . These images were etched in my subconsciousness as a child before speech had any authority , hence the stance of being close at school to all that looked like the Savior on my wall . After all , my sisters were burning their hair to look like his , so he must be the image of purity . 1
In The Last Supper I and II , Abdu ’ Allah engages in an exchange with classical art historical pieces which have also clearly influenced the history of photography . At first glance , the careful posing of the people in the photos creates a feeling of having documented a single moment in time . Like in Wenceslaus Hollar ’ s etchings , The Bowing Gentleman and Lady with a Houpette , Abdu ’ Allah photographs his subjects in full costume , paying particular attention to highlighted details such as the gun , ring , and religious garments as well as elements symbolic of status including emblems of labor such as boots , popular fashion icons like baseball caps and coats , and domestic references like the wooden bowl . The visual symbols speak to the way in which popular culture is transformed visually and coded using the body as medium , and in which beauty , politics , cultural identity , and leisure are realized largely as intellectual achievements of the vernacular culture .
Abdu ’ Allah also deliberately engages with Leonardo da Vinci ’ s The Last Supper . The symbolic sharing of a religious and spiritual legacy alludes not only to Western religious tradition , but also to Abdu ’ Allah ’ s own early tradition within the Pentecostal faith in Jamaica and the United Kingdom . The photo ’ s reversal of ethnicity and cultural traits of the original The Last Supper proposes a degree of unsurpassed inclusion . Abdu ’ Allah replaces the traditionally portrayed Jewish guests with newly reverted Afro-British Muslims ; the apostles with modern ‘ townies .’ Through these transformed images , Abdu ’ Allah negotiates a new type of inclusion within the realm of religious artwork , and advocates that discourse around issues of hybridity , creolization , and syncretism as essential cultural and conceptual phenomena is critical to understanding the colonial context in which African slaves were forced to abandon their own religious heritage in favor of conversion to Christianity , as well as the role of British culture in a post-colonial era . Despite these powerful , modern statements , The Last Supper I and II are striking in the degree to which their composition reflects the conventional art history canon . Abdu ’ Allah ’ s concentration on the human body reflects the focus of da Vinci ’ s classic Renaissance painting style and use of religious iconography common in chromolithograph images of religious scenes , often displayed in domestic spaces in the Caribbean .
1 Communication with Faisal Abdu ’ Allah , Stanford University , 2010 .
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