They fuck on the grass, nude save for a pair of white athletic socks.
One of my favorite pieces in Bedworks depicts a couple of muscular, youthful Black and brown men engaged in a series of gymnastic sex moves, blissfully enjoying themselves. But Ababri points out that the bed “can be a place of solitude and punishment, like in the prison environment, or a place of work for sex workers, and also a place of death, for the dead.”īedwork primarily (but not exclusively) portrays men, together or alone: a Black man stands behind an American flag wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with ‘BAD NEWS’ a man dressed in a superman costume reclines in a sensual pose in the middle of the street a pair of Moroccan youth in sweatpants sit at a cafe, a favorite pastime, two posters behind them read “GOODBYE MOROCCO.” The works are alternately funny, melancholic, erotic, and political, but always observational and compassionate. One’s first thought of a bed is a place of relaxation and sleep, but in the face of COVID-19 and the lockdown in France, it also becomes a particularly useful place to situate one’s studio. One of Ababri’s better known projects is Bedwork, a series of drawings made with colored pencils from his bed at home.
Soufiane Ababri, Bedwork (2019-2020), color pencils on paper, 24 x 32 cm
