Mounir Fatmi: Kissing Circles | Kissing Circles proposes an encounter between two classic Hollywood films: Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin and Casablanca by Michael Curtiz.
The circle serves as the link between this ensemble of recent work presented in the gallery. Mounir Fatmi has been working for several years with this universal shape, which is explored through a wide range of fields, including visual art-from Duchamp and his roto-reliefs, to another modernist artist, Sonia Delaunay. The circle is also found in religious symbolism, with one strong example being the pilgrims who walk around the Ka'ba, in Mecca, the most sacred structure in Islamic architecture. More concerned with philosophy than mathematics, the artist is inspired by Descartes geometric theorem, which establishes a relationship between "kissing" or mutually tangent circles. A response to this relationship is found in a poem titled, "The Kissing Precise" by Frederick Soddy, and Mounir Fatmi interprets this response in a series of bas-relief sculptures made with coaxial antenna cables, called Kissing Circles.
