The Tower of Babel: A Vignette

I passed my phone around to show photos of IVDE gallery's latest exhibit: all drawings by Iranian artist Farshid Maleki.

At dinner, my friends asked: "so will you write a blog about it?" I wasn't sure there and then. But the question simmered in my mind, as it does sometimes. Indeed, some blog topics, I dismiss first, because I claim I can't grasp "the twist", afraid it would be too banal.

But banal this art was not: we were discussing it over dinner and I was sending images of it to my relatives. The selected image above was considered too scattered by some, almost disturbing by another. It was the image that I had showed to one of the gallerists. I asked her: "do you think it's the Tower of Babel?"

She did look intrigued by my remark and she came closer to the scribbly magic marker portraits, nudes, and zoomed on my reference. I added: "it could be a wedding cake, but do you think it is?" And I appended: "you see my son is studying the Tower of Babel in art history and now I see it everywhere!"

Perhaps I do live in an ivory tower. On this blog, my sister once illustrated that admission with a painting of the Tower of Babel!