An Existential Crisis Outside Plato's Cave 2020

Curator: Sami Gattoufi's 2020 painting, "An Existential Crisis Outside Plato's Cave," presents us with a powerful image rendered in acrylic paint. What are your immediate impressions? Editor: Stark. The almost bleached-out figure, contrasted with the shadowy sphere, creates an immediate sense of unease. It makes me think about the sheer labor, the pushing of forms, present even in the seemingly immaterial. Curator: Absolutely. The title itself references Plato's allegory, a foundational text for understanding perceived realities. Consider how Gattoufi uses the male figure—are we to assume this is Sisyphus—as an entry point to examine existentialism through labor and futility? Editor: I'm curious about the materials and their role in conveying this sense of labor. The choice of acrylics allows for these layered effects, suggesting both fragility and mass in the boulder. Curator: Agreed. It's fascinating to see how Gattoufi connects with philosophy and mythology, but what strikes me is its contemporary voice. By using Neo-expressionism Gattoufi draws on a history of the raw, unfiltered experience of the individual, and this lends it resonance in our own age of crisis. He gives that historical anxiety an explicitly gendered face. Editor: The gendering is key. Note how the naked figure recalls a classical ideal while simultaneously showing visible signs of strain. Curator: Precisely! The exposed vulnerability emphasizes the tension inherent in striving against forces seemingly beyond control. There’s something very knowing about the painting’s critique. The weight seems to not just bear down physically, but intellectually. The social context here of perpetual labour that is unfulfilling cannot be ignored, particularly against rising precarious work environments. Editor: That resonates powerfully, bringing me back to the materials themselves. Acrylics, accessible and ubiquitous, are so intertwined with the modern making processes; the every-person’s paint choice for bringing an elite theme down to earth. And the layering effect conveys the building-up of years and pushing stones again, and again. It shows how daily practices influence artistic expression and the value society places on skilled craft versus repetitive, arguably “low skilled”, labor. Curator: Seeing it that way underscores how this piece grapples with timeless and modern anxieties. From the cave's shadows to the contemporary anxieties we face today, Gattoufi uses form and historical understanding to shed new light on persistent themes of individual struggle within the framework of societal expectations. Editor: Absolutely. By exploring the means by which its themes are materialised and what we understand to be art making it gives further opportunity to reconsider our social contexts, daily labor, and more abstract questions.