Jaco van Schalkwyk Bait al-Hikma Part II_05 2011 Etching ink, pen and ink, graphite, pastel in solution on paper
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Jaco van Schalkwyk
Bait al-Hikma (House of Knowledge)
Opening Saturday 9 April 2011 at 14:00
The exhibition runs from
2 - 30 April
On-line catalogue available from 9 April
The Bait al-Hikma was a library and translation institute in
Abassid-era, Baghdad founded in the 9th Century. It is considered
to be the intellectual center of the Islamic Golden Age. Having
obtained the secret of papermaking from Chinese prisoners taken
at the Battle of Talas (751 AD), the library flourished, supported
by stationery shops selling thousands of books per day. Renowned
as a great center of learning, scholars from around the world were
brought to the library, preserving and translating Greek, Indian
and Persian texts including the work of Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates,
Euclid, Galen, Arybhata and Brahmagupta. Perhaps its greatest resident
scholar was Al-Khawarizmi, the father of algebra. It is said that
when the library was ransacked during the Mongol invasion of 1258,
the river Tigris ran black with ink for six months from the enormous
quantities of books flung into the river. The library was again
ransacked during the American invasion of 2003, and remains partly
destroyed
- Extract from catalogue text by Jaco van Schalkwyk, 2011
Jaco van Schalkwyk holds a BFA in Drawing from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. In 2002 he left his studio to tour with American author and recording artist Carl Hancock Rux. Van Schalkwyk has since pursued a career in music, film and design. Van Schalkwyk is a director of iMPAC, founding member of Albatross Films, vocalist of Jaco+Z-dog, part-time lecturer in video at The Open Window School of Design, Pretoria and works as a freelance designer. This is his first solo exhibition.
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