Samta Benyahia Le Polygone et Le Dédale (review)
"Le Polygone et Le Dedale" (detail), Dreams and Conflicts, 2003, Glass, enamel, metal, wood, 220 x 245 cm. 50th Venice Biennale. Courtesy the artist and Martine et Thibault de la Chatre gallery. Samta Benyahia originally based her design for Le Polygon et Le Dedale—literally, "The Polygon and the Labyr i n t h "—on the Fatima rosette, an intense turquoise-blue motif commonly found in Andalusian-Arabic pottery and architecture. More than a mere ornament or stylistic device, this rosette, pared down and purified, is a common feature of her work: set on the ground or adorning stained-glass screens or the Moucharabieh partitions that both divide and interconnect spaces, allowing the viewer to see without being seen and symbolizing the opposition between the internal and the external, the feminine and the masculine, fullness and void.