Sandow Birk and Elyse Pignolet: The 99 Names of God

Sandow Birk and Elyse Pignolet's collaborative project, The 99 Names of God is a series of illustrations depicting the five airports and departure gates involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001. The 99 Most Perfect Names of God are the names of God in the Qur'an and in the Hadith. The 99 names vary, and they often appear in elaborate calligraphy and with extensive decorations. The motifs adorning the texts and the drawings are derived from ornamentation found in historical, hand-illuminated Qur'ans. Sandow Birk investigates the Qur'an as the divine message from God to mankind in his series American Qur'an. Birk follows the centuries old tradition of using color inks to render the calligraphy by hand. Birk seeks to deconstruct negative stereotypes against Islam, and present the Qur'an in accessible format to American society, in hopes of fostering an understanding about its relationship to Judeo-Christian beliefs.

The MAC exhibition will include selections from the full series comprising more than 300 pages that illustrate the 114 suras of the Qur'an. Substantial research and travel informed Birk's work on the American Qur'an. He completed a three-moth residency at Cité International des Artes in Paris and was granted access to one of the largest collections of hand-illuminated Qur'ans in the world at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland. American Qur'an has received tremendous acclaim across the country through various publications including The New York Times, Associated Press and the San Francisco Chronicle. The series has traveled to prestigious institutions including an exhibition in 2011 of 100 panels at The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.