Annabel Daou’s third solo exhibition at signs and symbols is built around found and gifted fragments of language. Knitted together into nets of shifting and dissipating meaning, the works attempt to capture the voice as an archeological remain, constantly evading our grasp.

In Stolen lines, parts of sentences pulled from various sources are cut into thin, fragile lines, each representing an object, an idea, or an incident, a part of some other whole. The 120 fragments are untethered from their intended place of meaning. Woven together, and torn open in places, they invite and obstruct understanding.

The sound piece What’s left of us?, made in collaboration with Fritjof Mangerich, plays from two paper speakers, ensnared in hanging paper nets. Daou’s voice intones words, fragments, and sentences, collected responses to the question/statement: “what’s left of us”. Trembling through the paper, the answers hover between the now of the question and an imagined future where what we have said becomes a residue of what we were.

Kick against the pricks (1-25) is a series of watercolor drawings of thistles. Some of the thistles are sketched on lines that never made their way into the larger network of language in the main gallery. The image of thistles, which are native to Lebanon, Daou’s country of origin, have appeared in her work over the years during times of difficulty and struggle. Here the spiky needles pierce out of the paper merging with the partially cut language.

In this new body of work, Daou reflects on where we stand and what we feel defines our existence when our sense of belonging and responsibility are in question.

What is given? What is taken? What is left?

Annabel Daou's work takes form in paper-based constructions, sound, performance, and video. Daou suspends, carves out, or records the language of daily life: from the ordinary or mundane to the intimately personal and urgently political. In her performance work she explores questions of trust, intimacy, cross-cultural exchange, and the operations of power. Her work frequently evokes moments of rupture and chaos but with the tenuous possibility for repair. Daou was born and raised in Beirut and lives in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include War games at Galerie Tanja Wagner, Declaration at Ulrich Museum of Art, and Global spotlight: Annabel Daou at Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington. Recent residencies include the Pollock-Krasner award at ISCP in New York and Haus Des Papiers in Berlin. A monograph of her work will be published by Distanz Publishing Berlin in 2024.