It’s been almost 5 years since we first met. At that time, for the Venice Biennale, I was preparing the Pavilion of Iraq, the country where you were born. The meeting was much more than a simple workshop visit. In a space somewhere in Forêt, a sort of empty garage, you had prepared a small exhibition. You thought it was important that I could physically experience your works, instead of showing me a series of photos on your computer screen. The meeting was a real invitation to look, to feel a transformation, to play a game. And we call this game art. It is essential to look at the ability to give, through the imagination, another meaning to things. The cap of a water bottle can easily become a city for a child. A stick from a tree can even transform into a coach. As an artist, you certainly play, but seriously, after careful thought and weighing. What most of us throw away becomes raw material for your artistic work. And just like Picasso who brought together a saddle and a handlebar of a bicycle to make an assemblage, you bring objects together by linking them to each other, by juxtaposing them, by temporarily attaching them. Each work is like an idea, a photo that has not yet been taken, an impulse or a thought. It tells us where to look, invites us to connect form and space. Furthermore, the spectator often becomes part, protagonist, accomplice, especially in performances. The spectator becomes a carrier, a base, and therefore sees himself reduced to an object. The moments are modeled in the image of a sculptor who shapes a face in clay. Mohammed Alani not only borrows or cites visible elements from recent art history, but also principles that he turns upside down. Nevertheless, Mohammed Alani is above all an artist who, intuitively, constructs images that enhance the banality of everyday life with playful simplicity. Philippe Van Cauteren Director of S.M.A.K. Ghent museum Ghent, February 23, 2018