Fann À Porter is pleased to present Stealing Sadness, Majd Kurdieh's second solo exhibition.
The exhibition presents a new series of works featuring Fasaeen & The Very Scary Butterfly Gang, Kurdieh's whimsical cartoon-like characters that speak for the artist and for many others. These characters complete the path of hope, and are on quest to steal sadness everywhere.
Kurdieh created the small characters that he calls Fasaeen and their 'gang', composed of other animal characters. The artist speaks throught these characters, writing scripts and quotes throughout the compositions, often referring to himself in the third person. These inscriptions are Kurdieh's way of speaking his mind and sending out his thoughts and feelings to the viewer.
Stealing sadness is very similar to generic stealing. Like the light-fingeredness of a skilled stealer, the light-spiritedness is what characterizes an effective stealer of sadness, where no one gets burdened by the thief's presence a they swiftly enter through windows and stealthily pass from beneath closed doors.
When sadness is stolen, joy is not simply given. Rather, hearts are watered and nurtured in order for joy to grow. For any joy that grows outside the heart, stays outside of it. When you steal sadness of others you are not solely helping them. In fact, those who you are helping are simultaneously implanting a feather onto your wing for you to fly higher, and to obtain a distant, holistic perspective, where you rise above all barriers that separate human-beings from each other, and that separate any single human-being from his/ her respective dream. Since matters on planet Earth have been quite troublesome, and sadness is overflowing, and in turn, obstructing pathways, and covering seas and mountains, the members of the The Very Scary Butterfly Gang are calling for volunteers.
Light-spirited volunteers, who dream of a world of less harshness, and who are genuine and do not strive to look like anyone other than their true selves are needed to join the Scary Butterfly Gang and/or for the Scary Butterfly Gang to join them.
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“I started writing, when all my thoughts transformed into birds that flew away when they heard the voice of the photographer, so how can I describe for you the bird without putting him in cage? and how can I tell you about his wings when I don’t know the secrets of flying? It’s just that I took my box of colors, and sneaked behind the grown-ups to scribble on walls and doors, and scream out the difference between objects and creatures.
The Very Scary Butterfly Gang is weird just like its name, how can a butterfly be scary? Have you ever tried to carry a butterfly? Weren’t you scared to break its wings with your giant fingers?
When the fragility of the butterfly scares you, you become indifferent to the roars of monsters, you will be busy defending the right of people to keep their humanity.
This is not one of the fights of Don Quixote, this is a destructive silent war in spite of the fact that there are no swords and guns involved, sometimes it is a war between the man and himself, and sometimes it takes the form of paintings that say: “Do not forget your humanity.” Stealing Sadness is the mission of this ever smiling ‘Gang’, maybe it is a smile of happiness or anger or challenge, but it is for sure not a smile of indifference. Indifference is the poisonous combination that transforms us into monsters.
An adventure that has sadness as enormous as a whale, and a universe that washes its stars with a tear drop, and an elephant that was able to fly when he had inside him the heart of a butterfly, ... I don’t want to spoil for you the fun of attending the exhibition ... I wish you a good appetite and peace.”
- Majd Kurdieh, 2018
