Over the course of a lengthy and meticulously documented investigation, the artist has reconstructed the history of an archaeological fragment from the ruins of the Achaemenid palace of Persepolis, in Iran, which was looted from the site in 1936, acquired by a Canadian museum in the early 1950s, stolen, rediscovered and finally returned to its country of origin—only to inexplicably disappear again.
This expansive wall installation, made of 144 glass fragments that visually evoke the appearance of crude oil, serve as reproductions of the 144 base-reliefs removed from the Persepolis ruins, now located in more than 50 private and public collections around the world. Spanning two walls, this particular display prominently underscores the disintegrated state of the stones, which were intentionally broken into smaller pieces to facilitate their transportation and dissemination.
