The carpet is the colour of sweaty mince – pasty, anaemic, flecked with greys and browns. At its centre, four chairs are set around a circular table. They are heavy gilt, their backs crested with a baroque emblem – seats for people who like to feel important. Upholstered in electric blue damask, set around a plywood tabletop, their grandeur is revealed as a piece of theatrical pomp. Over the whole scene, viewed from above, expand four broad blades – the shadow of a ceiling fan. In Mohammed Sami’s world of nightmare symbolism and visual metaphor, those same blades might equally belong to a helicopter or a kitchen blender. In their shadow the carpet is the dark red of dried blood.
This 2023 painting, The Grinder, is a grim start to an exhibition of paintings that send depth charges through Blenheim Palace. The pomp, the bling, the baggage of Blenheim all have the capacity to kill contemporary art. It takes some chutzpah to pitch yourself against these silk-hung rooms and their frames of martial dukes and icy duchesses. The eight artists previously selected to show here have been global superstars, among them Ai Weiwei, Jenny Holzer and Maurizio Cattelan (whose gold toilet got pinched from the premises). Sami was far from an obvious choice. The Baghdad-born artist’s first institutional show at Camden Art Centre was a highlight of last year. He is an enthralling painter, but hardly a household name. The gamble turns out to have been an inspired one.
