Laila Shawa
The Sponsors, 1994
Lithograph
38 x 58 cm
Edition of 50
© Laila Shawa.
In 1994, following the success of the original Walls of Gaza I series (1992), Laila Shawa created a second series, in an edition of 50 photo-lithographs on paper. Three of...
In 1994, following the success of the original Walls of Gaza I series (1992), Laila Shawa created a second series, in an edition of 50 photo-lithographs on paper. Three of the most striking works were reframed by replicating the original in a multiple-version format. This second series, Walls of Gaza II (1994), was created after the signing of the First Oslo Accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, signed in Washington in 1993, and addresses the huge frustration of the Palestinians at being pressured into accepting a deal that was not in their long-term interests. One of the most widely reproduced early works, The Sponsors (1992), was repeated four times over within the same frame.
So as to cover up the various writings freshly posted on the walls of Gaza each day, the IDF employed many tactics, including holding the residents of houses whose walls had been covered directly responsible, and ordering them out, often in the middle of the night, to overpaint their walls. Anyone refusing could be imprisoned. The original black and white photograph serving as the background to this lithograph shows part of a long wall on the Main Street of Gaza, which had been covered with defiant messages. Since no one could be found who “owned” the wall, IDF personnel resorted to spraying bitumen from hoses attached to a road construction lorry over the wall. It was Israeli soldiers, therefore, who came up with the idea of obscuring the messages underneath by overwriting them with dollar signs, and repeating this symbolic censorship along the entire wall, perhaps some 60 metres in overall length.
Shawa later remembered, “It occurred to me that the Israelis were making a statement to drive home the fact that, as Oslo had demonstrated, their every action was sponsored by American dollars. I highlighted the essential truth of that statement by adding, as colour ‘filters,’ the unmistakable elements of the American flag. For purely formal reasons relating to the background image, I placed the red and white stripes running across the dollar symbols, before adding the ‘star’ symbols (in reverse colours) below. These spontaneous decisions worked best for this composition. Since this is not the actual US flag, I was at first toying with the notion of “false flag” operations. Then, I realised that any display of an inverted flag is an internationally recognised signal of dire distress and immediate danger to property and life. This became my own preferred interpretation.”
© October Gallery, London, 2021.
So as to cover up the various writings freshly posted on the walls of Gaza each day, the IDF employed many tactics, including holding the residents of houses whose walls had been covered directly responsible, and ordering them out, often in the middle of the night, to overpaint their walls. Anyone refusing could be imprisoned. The original black and white photograph serving as the background to this lithograph shows part of a long wall on the Main Street of Gaza, which had been covered with defiant messages. Since no one could be found who “owned” the wall, IDF personnel resorted to spraying bitumen from hoses attached to a road construction lorry over the wall. It was Israeli soldiers, therefore, who came up with the idea of obscuring the messages underneath by overwriting them with dollar signs, and repeating this symbolic censorship along the entire wall, perhaps some 60 metres in overall length.
Shawa later remembered, “It occurred to me that the Israelis were making a statement to drive home the fact that, as Oslo had demonstrated, their every action was sponsored by American dollars. I highlighted the essential truth of that statement by adding, as colour ‘filters,’ the unmistakable elements of the American flag. For purely formal reasons relating to the background image, I placed the red and white stripes running across the dollar symbols, before adding the ‘star’ symbols (in reverse colours) below. These spontaneous decisions worked best for this composition. Since this is not the actual US flag, I was at first toying with the notion of “false flag” operations. Then, I realised that any display of an inverted flag is an internationally recognised signal of dire distress and immediate danger to property and life. This became my own preferred interpretation.”
© October Gallery, London, 2021.