Tomb of King Hiram, 2022

Comissioned by the 58th Carnegie International

For the 58th Carnegie International, Nasser takes as a subject a ruin that sits at the crossroads of ancient history, current geopolitics, and everyday life. The work engages with the 600-400 BCE tomb of King Hiram, the Phoenician King of Tyre, who supplied the Cedar wood and skilled artisans to build the palace of King David and Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. Today, this limestone structure sits on the side of a highway just outside the Lebanese village of Qana, where Jesus is said to have turned water to wine, and is, in modern times is the site of two civilian massacres brought on by military invasions.

At 4meters this work consists of smaller paintings bearing the impressions of the tomb’s facade, and dyed with native spartium and oleander flowers, shrubbery, walnut shells, and blackberries all found around the tomb. The rubbings of the Tomb call upon the act of witnessing, made to attest the presence of an absent, yet recurring history, tracing the genealogies of lands lost and found. This monument stands as an example of the entanglements of this world. What it represents and how it acts, does not matter, like most monuments it stands alienated from the population - yet a perfect summary for the account of the mess we’ve made.

Dala Nasser, The Tomb of King Hiram, 2022, in the 58th Carnegie International, September 24, 2022-April 2, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist and Carnegie Museum of Art. Photo: Sean Eaton