The Makeshift Body is the first monograph to document the work of contemporary artist Mandy El-Sayegh, whose process-driven practice is rooted in an exploration of material and language.
Executed in a wide range of media, including densely layered painting, sculpture, installation, sound, video and performance, El-Sayegh’s work investigates the formation and breakdown of systems of order, be they bodily, linguistic or political.
El-Sayegh likens her exploratory, observational process to the occurrence of contemporary social and political events, which unfold in highly chaotic and often disturbing ways. Justifications or explanations typically appear after the fact, devised to impose order on an inherently subjective and incomplete set of social, cultural and political processes. Through her work, she aims to remove the veil of these superimposed structures and reveal the intricacies of growth and decay as they happen in real time.
Elements such as found fragments, pages of the Financial Times and imagery from advertisements, social media, medical textbooks and pornography, as well as collected doodles and Arabic calligraphy from her father’s home in London, are combined as collage. El-Sayegh then asserts her own perspective by drawing directly on top of them, creating double meanings and calling into question our assumptions and understanding of typically unquestioned systems. Her art is preoccupied with the attempt to symbolically create a coherent “body” from disparate parts, a repeated exercise that ultimately reveals its own impossibility.
Revealing a fascinating, multifaceted art practice in until now unseen detail, The Makeshift Body is a visually rich publication that includes critical essays on El-Sayegh’s work, conversations with the artist, and photography documenting her exhibitions, performances and studio processes. In addition, a new visual essay created by El-Sayegh draws from the archive of raw materials that inform her myriad works.Born in Selangor, Malaysia, El-Sayegh lives and works in London, where she received a BA in Fine Art from the University of Westminster in 2007, followed by an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2009. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, USA (2022); Busan Biennale, Busan, South Korea (2020); Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon (2019); SculptureCenter, Long Island City, USA (2019); Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK (2019); The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, Mexico (2018); Instituto de Visión, Bogota, Colombia (2018); Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China (2017); and the NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, Queens, USA (2016), among others.
She was shortlisted for the biannual Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 2017. In 2022, her work was featured in the British Art Show, the largest touring exhibition of contemporary art in the UK, and the Biennale Matter of Art, Prague. She also took part in performance festival MOVE 2022: Culture club – Corps collectifs at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, presenting En Masse in collaboration with choreographer Alethia Antonia and composer Lily Oakes.
Works by El-Sayegh are held by collections including Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art North Miami; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; Long Museum and Start Museum, Shanghai.
Ellen Greig is a curator and writer based in London, and is Director of PEER. Previously, she was Senior Curator at Chisenhale Gallery, where she developed new commissions by Mandy El-Sayegh, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Ima-Abasi Okon, Rachel Jones, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Alex Baczynski-Jenkins and Banu Cennetoğlu, among others. She has held curatorial positions at Focal Point Gallery, LUX Artists’ Moving Image and Liverpool Biennial. She was an artistic adviser for the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2022), curated by Cecilia Alemani, and is a trustee at The Old Waterworks, Westcliff-on-Sea.
Anna Pigott is a London-based writer and producer working in contemporary art and community projects. Having completed a master’s degree in Comparative Literary Studies at Goldsmiths, she worked for several years at White Cube, before moving to directly produce projects with artists. She has worked with Mandy El-Sayegh for a number of years, contributing to the organisation of exhibitions and writing on El-Sayegh’s work for shows including Units of Measure at UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, and the British Art Show, UK. Pigott is particularly interested in non-hierarchical and participatory forms of knowledge-production. Aside from her work in contemporary art, she has been involved in the running of The Feminist Library, London, for over ten years and is a trustee of Babel’s Blessing, a grassroots language project that works with refugees and migrants.
Elaine ML Tam is an itinerant writer, editor and curator from Hong Kong, currently living and working in London. She collaborates with contemporary artists and thinkers to create new forms and forums for critical engagement. Her research interests include psychoanalytic theory, performance writing and feminist new materialisms. She has works of theory-fiction forthcoming with V2_Publishing and Sternberg Press, and her novella The Pool is due to be released with philosophy publisher Urbanomic this year.Born in Selangor, Malaysia, El-Sayegh lives and works in London, where she received a BA in Fine Art from the University of Westminster in 2007, followed by an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art in 2009. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, USA (2022); Busan Biennale, Busan, South Korea (2020); Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon (2019); SculptureCenter, Long Island City, USA (2019); Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK (2019); The Mistake Room, Guadalajara, Mexico (2018); Instituto de Visión, Bogota, Colombia (2018); Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China (2017); and the NY Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, Queens, USA (2016), among others.
She was shortlisted for the biannual Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 2017. In 2022, her work was featured in the British Art Show, the largest touring exhibition of contemporary art in the UK, and the Biennale Matter of Art, Prague. She also took part in performance festival MOVE 2022: Culture club – Corps collectifs at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, presenting En Masse in collaboration with choreographer Alethia Antonia and composer Lily Oakes.
Works by El-Sayegh are held by collections including Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art North Miami; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; Long Museum and Start Museum, Shanghai.
