For the Saudi artist Ahmed Mater, presented by the Galerie Athr, certain objects radiate a force field, a magnetic power. This is the case of the Kaaba in Mecca, where thousands of Muslim pilgrims gather daily. The mechanism of Magnetism is simple: a magnetic black cube is encircled by thousands of metal particles, a metaphor for circumambulation, the seven laps that Muslims must perform around the Kaaba. Obeying a principle of attraction/repulsion, it is both centripetal and centrifugal, a point of convergence and repellence, which returns the Muslim to the bosom of the family at the end of the pilgrimage. This piece is more than a simulacrum reduced to its most minimal form. One can read a metaphor of the artist as demiurge, a vision of creation with a big and a small “c”. Ahmed Mater has always investigated our relationship to religion. While he was still a doctor, in his early work, the Pre-illuminations, he combined calligraphy with X-rays of human bones. If he uses elements of medical diagnoses, it is not to demystify texts but rather to literally illuminate them, returning the sacred to the human heart, bringing it back to an intimacy that religions sometimes tend to forget…
對Athr 藝廊展出的沙烏地阿拉伯藝術家阿邁
德·馬特（Ahmed Mater）而言，某些物品會散
發一種力場、一種磁力，比方說聖城麥加的卡巴
天房，那兒每天聚集了成千上萬的伊斯蘭教朝聖
者。《磁力》的設備非常簡單：一個具有磁性的
黑色立方體，被成千上萬的金屬顆粒所包圍，隱
喻伊斯蘭教徒必須繞行卡巴天房七次。按照吸引/
排斥的原理，它兼具向心力和離心力，既是匯聚
點也是朝聖結束時，促使回教徒分散、各自回家
的起點。這件作品不僅僅只是一個形式化約到最
極簡的擬像，我們也可在作品裡讀到藝術家如造
物主的隱喻，一個對最偉大和最渺小的創造的願
景。馬特始終質問著我們和宗教之間的關係。當
他還是醫生時，早期作品《照明》將阿拉伯文字
和人體骨骼的X 光片揉合在一起。他使用醫療診斷
的元素，並非意圖褻瀆經文，而是如字面意義所
示地照亮它們，將神聖重新帶回人們的內心，重
新成為宗教有時往往會忘記的私密層面...
