When Selection Becomes Salient:
Discovering the Spectrum of Selection
in the Work of Faisal Abdu’Allah
F
amiliar sights are abundant in Faisal
Abdu’Allah’s work but these familiar sights
are found in unfamiliar contexts. By juxtaposing these two elements in his work, Abdu’Allah
poses hypothetical questions to his viewers and
consequently asks them to contemplate the inexplicable through the presentation of ordinary individuals in unlikely settings.
Each of Abdu’Allah’s works considered here
contains elements of the process of artistic selection. The process of selection is evident in The Last
Supper I and The Last Supper II (1996/2011) (p. 17–19),
Adeve (2012) (fig. 1), and Squad (2015) (p. 20–41),
which represent positions on a spectrum of
selection. On one end, the artist has total control
over decisions in an artwork’s making. On the
other end, the artist relinquishes his choices. While
addressing issues of representation and identity,
these three works of art by Abdu’Allah represent
different locations along this selection spectrum,
marking the arti