Entitled Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure in reference to the Pyramids of Giza, David Adjaye’s modular geometric sculptures pay homage to the ancient Egyptian pyramidal form that encodes an entire cultural history of technological innovation and ancient African knowledge systems.  Both extending and departing from Adjaye’s broader architectural practice, the sculptures serve as a point of examination between relationships of formal and cultural meaning, between the canons of Classicism and the vernacular traditions of non-Western cultures.

A continuation of his experimentation with monoforms, the sculptures are  composed  of  individual  elements  with the  capacity  to  be  reconfigured  in  a  variety  of  orientations. Comprised of marble  formed  through  the  long  history  of  geologic  compression, in  which  minerals  recrystallize  to  form  streaks  and  veins, the sculptures appear static and immovable in their heavy solidity belying the fact that each of the four constituent parts can be reconfigured to produce multiple variations, giving them a sense of dynamism and play that is itself semantic in nature.

The sculptures were originally presented in visual and spatial dialogue with a new body of paintings by American artist Adam entitled ‘We are Not’ at Pace Hong Kong Gallery. Viewed in concert, the works articulate a shared visual lexicon that explores questions of language, identity, and monumentality.