Peter Clothier

Poetry, it seems, can get a person into trouble. The central image of "Sol Star," the visionary poem that spawned Lita Albuquerque's contribution to the 6th International Cairo Bienale, was a golden bee spinning universal connections out of light and space. A Los-Angeles artist who has built a substantial reputation for large-scale, ephemeral, site-specific works based frequently on cosmic reference points, Albuquerque had been thrilled to receive permission for her project for the sands around the pyramids of Giza from Dr. Zahi Hawass, head of Antiquities at the site, and had spent months designing "a complex piece, involving the image of a large honey-bee encircled by planets." For Albuquerque, born in the Middle East and a great lover of Egypt's culture and mythology, the bee was a powerful symbol of southern Egypt.

For others, though, there were other, less benign meanings to be read. The ground-plan motif for her piece was a huge honey-comb and, arriving in Egypt in May last year, Albuquerque hired a surveyor to ensure its mathematical precision. Unhappily, the man perceived something quite different from what she intended in the six points he had been asked to plot. His conclusion: that Albuquerque was about to encircle the pyramids with Stars of David. Public outrage ensued when the surveyor took the story to the press, the artist was accused of being an Israeli spy, and no less a person than the Minister of Culture stepped in to halt the project until the scandal could be resolved.

Providentially, the artist recalled that her original idea had been to place the pyramids "in fields of stars," and she reverted to this plan, projecting a celestial map of the northern hemisphere on the desert sands instead of the honeycomb, and marking the stars - as had been her plan -- with circles of dry blue pigment, each ten feet in diameter. The result was spectacular. "Everybody loved it," says Albuquerque. The piece was selected as one of five winners of the international prize before the desert winds removed its traces, restoring the site to its previous state. And there is talk now of her being invited back to Egypt to fulfill one of her great dream-projects: restoring the pyramids' original caps of white gold in celebration of the millennium. Even Hollywood would be hard put to dream up a happier ending.

---Peter Clothier has written numerous non-fiction and fiction publications, poetry, articles, art reviews, art catalogues, book reviews, and essays.