Heritage Studies #7 is part of an ongoing series by the Egyptian American artist Iman Issa that imaginatively recasts ancient Egyptian and Islamic artifacts and architectural remnants as geometrically abstract, minimal sculptures. This elegant wooden form and its slender metal tripod are accompanied by a vinyl wall text that describes a quartzite "Statue of King Ahmose; Unifier of the land who established the country’s national borders, which it retains to this day." The discrepancy between that text’s apocryphal historical reference and the sculpture’s emphatically modern minimalist form—what we might call its speculative temporality—provokes productive questions about the manipulability, stakes, and stewardship of ancient history.
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Credit Line:Purchase, The Ford Foundation Gift, 2024
Object Number:2024.422a–e
Rights and Reproduction:Iman Issa
the artist (from 2015; to Kouvali); [Sylvia Kouvali, Athens, until 2024; sold to MMA]
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now," November 17, 2024–February 17, 2025, unnumbered cat. (pl. 69; lent by the artist and Sylvia Kouvali).
Diana Nawi inIman Issa: Heritage Studies. Exh. cat., Pérez Art Museum Miami. Miami, 2015, pp. 10, 68–69, ill. pp. 44–45 (installation photo), 55 (color) (unknown edition), generally discusses "Heritage Studies" series.
Ryan Inouye inIman Issa: Heritage Studies. Exh. cat., Pérez Art Museum Miami. Miami, 2015, pp. 16–18, 72–74, generally discusses "Heritage Studies" series.
Diana Nawi and Iman Issa inIman Issa: Heritage Studies. Exh. cat., Pérez Art Museum Miami. Miami, 2015, pp. 24–25, 30–32, 40–41, 75–76, 79–80, 85, generally discuss "Heritage Studies" series.
Lauren O'Neill-Butler and Iman Issa. "Iman Issa." artforum.com. March 4, 2015, generally discuss "Heritage Studies" series.
Andrew Weiner and Iman Issa. "Iman Issa." bombmagazine.org. July 15, 2017, ill. (color, installation photo) (unknown edition), generally discuss "Heritage Studies" series.
Frances Jacobus-Parker inWhitney Biennial 2019. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. New York, 2019, p. 281, generally discusses "Heritage Studies" series.
Augustín Pérez Rubio. Aimless: Confronting Imago Mundi. Exh. brochure, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani de Palma. Palma, 2023, pp. 15–16, ill. p. 24 (color) (not this edition).
Iman Issa. "Iman Issa on Ancient Egypt." Perspectives. Online resource [metmuseum.org/perspectives], November 22, 2024, ill. (color; detail, overall, and installation photo, Exh. New York 2024–25).
Souleo. "Black Culture Amplified at Park Avenue Armory and The Met." rollingout.com. December 12, 2024, ill. (color, installation photo, Exh. New York 2024–25).
Akili Tommasino. Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2024, pp. 27, 253, colorpl. 69.
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