Tarek Lakhrissi
Betraying power, 2023

Lakhrissi’s work Betraying Power continues his humorous play with the form of weapons, in a more direct response to Jean Genet’s work. Following his exhibition at VITRINE, London, where eight steel sculptures were showcased in the gallery’s window space in Bermondsey Square, bathed in fluorescent green light, Betraying Power is part of a group of works that are pointed, sharp, capable of inflicting damage, but misshapen and bent, hanging harmlessly from chains. The works reference betrayal in their titles, including Betraying Norms, Betraying Community and Betraying the Moon. For the Genet of The Thief’s Journal, “treachery is beautiful if it makes us sing”. Here Lakhrissi celebrates betrayal through objects that, like jewelry, refuse to capitulate to any particular design or functional use, objects that sing of the power of frustration of formal expectations.

Excerpt (with a few transformations) from “Theo Gordon: ‘Tarek Lakhrissi’”, Burlington Contemporary, July 2021.