Ibrahim El-Salahi Flying Happiness Factory from Prison Notebook 1976

  • MoMA, Floor 4, 420 The David Geffen Galleries

FLYING HAPPINESS FACTORY

You sing more sweetly than birds.

You fly over hillocks and grasslands.

With ironlike humming lyrics,

An unmatched metallic melody

Broadcast from radio stations,

Every single morning, every hour.

Oh, metallic radio stations,

Have mercy on people and spare them such cruel happiness.

Spare them such cruel happiness.

Ibrahim El-Salahi: This is about the propaganda that was spread all over the country through broadcasting. I wrote that this propaganda sounded like a bird, with its very sweet song.

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
319.2017.17
Copyright
© 2021 Ibrahim El-Salahi / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London
Associated work
Prison Notebook
Department
Drawings and Prints
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