Deconstruction structure N°1 :

History is not mine, 2013, France, 5 min, HD, colour, stereo
God is Dead, 2007, France, 3 min 32, HD, B&W.
Sleep Al Naim, 2005-2012, France, 26 minutes, HD, B&W, stereo.
Typewriter, paper, hammer
Deconstruction Structure N°1 connects together several works from mounir fatmi. History Is Not Mine is a response to the censorship of fatmi’s public projection, Technologia, in Toulouse, France. In History Is Not Mine, two hands “type” with two hammers. Subverting the simple and quotidian act of typing, it calls into question the heavyhandedness of historical accounts and the violence that subtends them, here made literal by the weight of the hammers as they strike the keys and by the censorship that catalyzed the work’s creation. For his video God is Dead, 2007, Fatmi alternates the printed statements “God is dead by Nietzsche” and “Nietzsche is dead by God” in flourished black lettering on a white background. The video is without sound, granting the English words a silent gravity. Begun in 2005, Sleep Al Naim is a work of fiction in black and white showing a man sleeping peacefully, his bare chest heaving and falling to the rhythm of his breathing. The video lasts 6 hours. Mounir Fatmi has chosen to represent a contemporary icon, the writer Salman Rushdie. The film borrows its imagery from the film “Sleep”, in direct reference to Andy Warhol’s minimalist pop experimental film in 1963, it shows 6 hours continuous image of the poet John Giorno sleeping. The video, originally scheduled in the exhibition “25 years of Arab creativity” (2012) celebrating the creation of the Institute of the Arab World in Paris, was withdrawn by the organizers. This censorship from an established cultural institution has caused consternation in the media and questions the freedom to create in France.