Fragment

Inspired by the tableau with the wooden ornaments of the minbar of the Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo from the year 1296, a masterpiece of the Mameluke era, the artist Adriana Czernin developed a work series that takes as its theme the different aspects of geometric construction. In doing so, she sees ornament as a metaphor for cultural, social, and personal entanglements. Construction and deconstruction—keeping to strict rules but also breaking and dodging them – are components of Czernin’s intensive work with the ornamental element. Apart from the strictly formal approach to the historic relict’s language of forms, Czernin focuses on the function of the ornament as vehicle of tradition and religion, thus alluding to its transcendent significance.