The name of the show, Excalibur, which has taken place in Berlin from November 14 to 19, is derived from King Arthur’s mythical sword, and much like the glossy regalia, Samah Rafiq tells me she is inspired by the rituals surrounding knightship: velveteen excess, submission, and critiques of sovereignty, reign supreme. Rafiq’s appropriation of Excalibur is more than a mere allusion; it is a deliberate invocation of the spectacle and ceremony surrounding medieval rituals of knightship, a conduit through which she examines notions of the aesthetics of power.
Rafiq reinterprets the sword as a stand-in for the contemporary fetishisation of status symbols —emblems that reverberate through a consumerist, image-saturated zeitgeist. The works on display create an aesthetic theatre that feels both archaic and hypermodern, where the glossy veneer of medieval regalia meets the commercialised opulence of the digital billboard.
The exhibition is a tightly curated collection of ten works, comprising triptychs and diptychs that weave together disparate elements of contemporary and historical iconography. Through visual references spanning from the cinematic, such as the firearms from Tomb Raider, to the cultural and nostalgic (casino signs and royal family curtains), Rafiq draws a line connecting the relics of a bygone era of mythological splendour to the gaudy insignia of late capitalist spectacle. The show engages with a critical examination of symbols, questioning the value systems that shape our collective psyche and how they are mediated through the lens of consumer culture.
The central leitmotif of the curtain is a recurring feature, both materially and metaphorically. It delineates the boundaries of the sacred and profane, mediating the viewer’s experience and transforming the gallery space into a stage where the grandiosity of power is both celebrated and critiqued. Rafiq’s technique is to distort works, using oil and airbrush.
This manipulation of the surface speaks to a broader theme in her work: the distortion of perception inherent in a culture dominated by the commodity form. By heightening the visual intensity, Rafiq amplifies the sensory appeal of the objects she depicts, mirroring the way consumer goods are designed to seduce and occupy an outsized space in our desires and fantasies. Speaking to our own perceptual distortions within the world of consumerism, the artist depicts how things appear larger and shinier than they really are, taking up more space than their actual size within our psyches.
Rafiq’s approach recalls Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra and hyperreality — the objects are not merely representations but operate as signs without referents, pointing instead to an endless loop of self-referential desire. The airbrushed surfaces shimmer and glisten, creating a visual language reminiscent of the idealised imagery of advertising and the oversaturated aesthetics of social media.
In the triptych featuring three iridescent blue saints, entitled Tabernacle I, II and III (2024), Rafiq brings the visual language of religious iconography into dialogue with secular pop culture. The triptych is positioned by curator Kira Streletzlki in direct confrontation with the depiction of guns from Tomb Raider, entitled Afterlife (2024), a juxtaposition that underscores the relationship between violence and sanctity. The saints, rendered in a luminous blue that evokes the divine hues of Byzantine art, are anonymised figures, devoid of facial features or distinguishing characteristics: archetypes of the collective unconscious are immediately recognisable. The saints’ gestural stillness is contrasted starkly with the aggressive stance of the guns, suggesting the duality of redemption and destruction that permeates both religious and secular narratives. Here, the gun is transformed into a modern relic — imbued with a quasi-religious reverence that mirrors the gravitas of medieval relics, underscoring the ritualistic allure of violence in contemporary media.
The artist’s largest work, titled Communion (2024), serves as a focal point of the exhibition, embodying her interrogation of the commodified sublime. The painting features two distorted cocktail glasses, the contents glowing in an electrifying shade of neon pink. Rafiq’s reference to mid-century wine adverts is palpable; the disembodied hands and floating objects recall the visual lexicon of postwar consumer advertising, where the human form was reduced to an appendage of the product. Here, however, the glasses hold no discernible liquid; instead, the pink effulgence appears suspended, and amorphous, creating a sense of dissonance.
This abstraction invites viewers to project their desires onto the work, becoming complicit in the very act of commodification that the piece critiques. The composition thus functions as a kind of anti-billboard — suggesting the promise of satisfaction without delivering a concrete product, a visual metaphor for the hollow excesses of late capitalism.
Rafiq’s preoccupation with surface aesthetics and distortion extends beyond the visual realm; it is embedded in the very structure of her paintings. A key element of the exhibition is its spatial configuration, orchestrated by Streletzlki, who creates a dialogue between works that speaks to the dualities of sacred and profane, power and submission.
Excalibur is a show that demands to be read as both a critique and a celebration of the aesthetics of power and consumption. Through her use of distortion, surface manipulation, and deliberate iconographic juxtapositions, Samah Rafiq offers a meditation on the display of sovereignty and the dynamics of desire in an image-saturated age. It is this very focus that makes Rafiq’s work so compelling: she holds a mirror up to the consumerist gaze, reflecting back its own distorted, shimmering fantasies. In doing so, she not only critiques the commodification of culture but also implicates the viewer in its perpetuation. Ultimately, Excalibur is a visual exploration of the contemporary relic — an interrogation of what we choose to venerate in a world where the sacred has been subsumed by the spectacle.
