The Calligraphies of the Unknown paintings explore a central theme in Mounir Fatmi’s work: language. This pictorial series hence organizes the encounter between a graphic language inspired by Arab calligraphy and the graphic language of economics. It explores the existence of a possible link between language-based calligraphic signs and the geometric signs representing numbers related to economic activity. As a result, one can perceive the coldness of graphics that conceal their true consequences on the world of the living. This series is partly inspired by the work of mathematicians seduced by the possibility of presenting the variations of stock markets in the form of esthetically pleasing curves, namely fractals. The fractal, a geometric description of the variations on financial markets, is seen as both a descriptive and predictive modelling of the studied phenomena.

In this work, the artist attempts to decipher this modern and impenetrable language that nevertheless influences our daily lives and the stability of the global economy. Placing the scientific and artistic mirrors face to face, he entices the viewer into an endless and dizzying play on reflections.

He says: “In order to understand the world, one must measure the pulse of the financial markets, but also of the flea markets.”