Umm Kulthum faints on stage

Meditations inspired by Polys Peslikas’s exhbition at the Cyprus Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

Faint on stage? Umm Kulthum never did. It was the the audience that swooned when she sang. ButwWhat if, overcome by the power of her song, the singer herself had passed out? What would have ensued during the sudden silence? Umm Kulthum faints on stage is the title Polys Peslikas coined for one of the paintings in his exhibition The future of colour at the Cyprus Pavilion during the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. This book offers stories and thoughts inspired by Peslikas’s paintings.

A retrospective meditation on the exhibition, the book includes a piece of punk existentialist poetry by the artist group Neoterismoi Toumazou; an interview of celebrated ceramist Valentinos Charalambous by pavilion curator Jan Verwoert, conducted during a visit to Nefertiti’s bust at the Neues Museum in Berlin; a short story by New York-based artist-writer Mirene Arsanios, echoing the 1980s childhood experience of temporarily living in Cyprus; and a contextual essay about the work of Peslikas.

Contributors

Mirene Arsanios, Valentinos Charalambous, Louli Michaelidou, Neoterismoi Toumazou, Jan Verwoert