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R A C K I D K O R A I C H I Letters of Clay Homage to Ibn Arab? Maryline Lostia 8 4 - N k a Journal of Contem porary African Art R achid Kora'ichi's travelling companions are mystic poets of the Sufi tradition. The paths followed by Rumi, Attar and Ibn Arabi are like threads drawn across the world, threads that intersect and weave a web connecting eastern and western cultures. Hence, Rachid Koraichi has chosen Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) to pay homage to in his series of works recently exhibited in Rotterdam as part of the ground breaking exhibition Unpacking Europe, curated by Salah Hassan and Iftikhar Dadi. Ibn Arabi once said, "I knew that my word would reach both horizons, both East and West." His words would also receive new life and meaning in Kora'ichi's large scale multi-media installations. During the 1 2 0 1 century, the mystic Ibn Arabi shared many of the same preoccupations of western medieval mystics. Indeed, both Muslim and Christian thinking were confronted by a fundamental problem, articulated as a question by Albert the Great: Does the word "Being" mean the same thing for creatures as it does for God? The answer, though negative, did not suffice. A statement still needed to be made about the existential status of God's creation. Ibn Arabi's extensive meditation was guided by this quest. "The universe is nothing other than His word."1 How can it be heard? The Qur'an reveals that the work of Creation was accomplished in one undivided moment, in accordance with divine orders. We, too, are letters whose meaning comes from the Creator—everything in the universe that exists is a letter that pre-existed in divine science. By extension of the divine breath generating words, each letter manifests an objective material character, which then incorporates itself into another, together building visible worlds. This hermetic thesis is the subject of numerous chapters in the Futuhdt that are devoted to the cryptic letters. The universe is thus an immense book written by the Almighty and whose deciphering remains a challenge. This metaphor surely reminds us of what Galileo said in 1623: While this practice could be associated with calligraphy, Kora'ichi's aspirations extend much further. To appropriate the words of Ibn Arabi is indeed to reinvigorate a form of existence through which he expresses himself anew. The great Master himself behaves quite similarly in the Book of Divine Theophanies, where he s u m m o n s the spirits of past prophets and saints so that he may converse with them. This book testifies to the richness and power of the imaginary world of Ibn Arabi, who, by virtue of internal concentration, visualizes the spirits convened between worlds. Koraichi revisits the world of the mystic and accompanies him in his quest for meaning. In his artistic ceuvre, where men are signs and where words are turned around as if to reflect one another better in a mirror, writing seems to search for its distant origins through reinventing all the possible signs. Upon viewing these works, spectators lose themselves in a dance in which the rapture of signs defies the mediums that support them. But amidst the liveliness of these signs and their brilliant tracing of the universe, nothing is m u d dled . The entangled character-signs and words come to inscribe themselves with precision beneath the artist's brush, parting from the sky and coming back down to earth. In the indecisive weaving that covers each piece, the dance captures us in a whirl that tears us from our familiarity with words. Through estrangement , we rediscover their reality and importance. Words provide the means for our representations and our understanding of the world around us. This interrogation into the origin of meaning and existence is the thread of Ariadne that orients the entire ceuvre of Koraichi. If signs lose their meaning in the space of an instant, all the better it is for us to embrace their existence. Koraichi s u m m o n s us to understand that it is these elements (signs and words) that possess a...

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