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Our Magnolia (2009)

Nashashibi/Skaer

16mm film, black and white and colour, 1:1.33, optical sound

The Hunterian, University of Glasgow

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Details

Classification:

Moving Image

Materials:

16mm film, Digital video, 16mm film

Dimensions:

5 minutes

Credit:

Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, with the support of Hunterian Friends, 2015

Ownership history:

Purchased from the artists by the Contemporary Art Society, with support from the Hunterian Friends; presented to The Hunterian (Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery), University of Glasgow, 2015

Our Magnolia takes as its starting point the surreal landscape painting Flight of the Magnolia (1944) by Paul Nash, official war artist of World War I and World War II. In this context, the painting’s flower motif comes to represent the unfolding parachutes used by airborne regiments or artillery explosions. Nashashibi /Skaer’s film develops this reference with a series of enigmatic associations that form the thread running through Our Magnolia.

A shot of the half visible skeletal shape of a decomposing whale buried on a deserted beach echoes a drawing of a whale skeleton with the title Death, which is part of Leonora (2006), a work by Lucy Skaer also in the Hunterian collection. The images in the film are often as seductive as they are threatening, carrying the suggestion of impending disaster. At the end of the film, the soundtrack erupts from total silence with the anguished reaction of a woman to the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

All rights reserved. Any further use will need to be cleared with the rights holder. Permission granted to reproduce for personal and educational use only. Commercial copying, hiring, lending is prohibited. The collection that owns this artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.

For further information, please consult our section of our copyright policy.

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