Defeat
- Artist: Hamed Abdalla
- Date: 1963
- Medium: Silver, aluminium, tar and oil paint on board
- Dimensions: frame: 633 x 745 x 42 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is the "Defeat" by Hamed Abdalla, a 1963 work that fuses silver leaf, aluminium, tar and oil paint on a board. Abdalla layered bright silver with aluminium, then applied a blow‑torch to scorch the surface, producing a burnt‑gold texture. Over those scorched marks he added abstract calligraphic strokes in black paint mixed with tar, giving the image a written, almost hieroglyphic quality. The piece sits at the heart of his Illuminations series, created while he lived in Copenhagen. Though the surface is abstract, the black marks echo the idea of defeat and collapse, echoing the political turmoil he witnessed back in Egypt after the 1956 Suez Crisis. Abdalla’s technique—blending unconventional materials with a gesture of destruction—lets the painting feel both luminous and raw, a visual record of loss and resilience.
See it in person
Defeat is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
