Ibrahim El-Salahi. The Song of the Tyrant's Bird from Prison Notebook

Ibrahim El-Salahi

The Song of the Tyrant's Bird from Prison Notebook

1976

Ink on paper from a notebook with thirty-eight ink on paper drawings

Not on view

THE SONG OF THE TYRANT'S BIRD

Come close to me. Stand by my side.

Keep me company.

I’ll share my food with you.

I’ll dictate my words unto you

Until I become the ears for your hearing,

Your eyes with which you know,

Your guiding light leading to my path.

Be with me. I guarantee you everlasting eternal happiness.

Eternal happiness, eternal happiness, eternal . . . eternal happiness . . .


Ibrahim El-Salahi: I gave this bird the song of the bird of the devil, the governing devil.

Publication excerpt from

Ibrahim El-Salahi. Prison Notebook, 1976. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018.

Medium Ink on paper from a notebook with thirty-eight ink on paper drawings
Dimensions 11 1/4 × 6 3/4" (28.6 × 17.1 cm)
Credit Acquired through the generosity of Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin, Catie and Donald Marron, Alice and Tom Tisch (in honor of Christophe Cherix), Marnie Pillsbury and Committee on Drawings and Prints Fund
Object number 319.2017.9
Associated work Prison Notebook
Department Drawings and Prints

Explore more

All works by Ibrahim El-Salahi →

From MoMA Design Store

Licensing

Artwork or archival images

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

Audio and film clips

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.

Text from a publication or the archives

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.