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BASIL ALKAZZI

The Virgin Mary Series- A Magnificent Obsession

1960 -1998





Basil Alkazzi’s works are revelations, and also make it clear that sex can be a spiritual revelation, as the annunciation ingeniously suggests.  The Angel Gabriel tells Mary-- spiritually pure because she is a virgin and will remain one forever-- that she will be impregnated by God and give birth to his son, mysteriously becoming a mother, that is, creative, informed by the Holy Spirit, housing it in her body.  The Annunciation suggests that all sexual acts are implicitly-- potentially-- spiritual, and all spiritual acts, including making art (certainly religious icons) are implicitly sexual.
.....Love becomes unequivocally spiritual in Basil Alkazzi's later works, suggesting-- as I want to do--that his works are religious icons, a point made explicitly clear by his Angel, Three Angels, and Five Angels, all 1998.

Donald Kuspit 2014



1960

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1978

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1979

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1982

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1998

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